It’s nearly time to tee it up for a new season of golf at Winfield-Mount Union, where excitement is running high after the Wolves reached the Class 1A boys’ state championships as a team last year for the first time since 2017 and would finish tied for sixth.

Only one senior departs off of that state-bound squad, while precocious talents like sophomores Cody Milks and Justin Knipfer are back. Milks carded a 10-over-par 81 at the state tournament and had an average nine-hole score of only 48 strokes last spring, while Knipfer went lower than 47 per nine holes and shot 82 at state.

Senior Sinjin Brown and juniors Max Edwards, Konner Kinneberg and Grant Anderson are also all back after posting cumulative adjusted average scores of 51 or lower. WMU head coach Mitch Wachs tell KCII Sports that his guys have taken last spring’s momentum and ran with it.

“Some of those kids really came on at the end [of last season],” Wachs says. “Some of the young kids really started shooting some scores, and they’ve been playing a lot. They’ve been on the course a lot, they were on the course quite a bit last summer, so we’re pretty happy about that.”

The girls’ team at Winfield-Mount Union will have three juniors back with varsity experience, including Kaelyn Townsley, who had the third-lowest round of the season for the Wolves before suffering an injury. WMU plays its first meet of the golf season Thursday against conference rival Highland.