So with four straight championships, a 93-match winning streak and a lineup nearly untouched by graduation, it’s just a matter of time before the Bow golf team is handed another Division III crown, right?
Not so fast – and it’s the Falcons themselves who are against the early coronation.
“I think our top four players are back. It really helps, but we can’t sleep on anybody,” senior co-captain Ronan Lucey said. “Lebanon is coming from Division II, we’ve never seen them before. A bunch of kids just need to keep getting better every day. Any kid who steps up would be nice.”
Don’t get the wrong idea. The Falcons are a confident bunch. It’s hard to mute the swagger on a team whose seniors have gone their whole careers without losing a single match, and that returns its top three scorers and six of its top seven players from last year’s D-III tournament.
It adds up to a daunting mix – just not an infallible one.
“A concern I have is that we’re not as deep as we have been in the past,” said Coach Mike Seraikas, whose team won the title by a whopping 36 strokes in 2013 but has won by eight and 19 in the two years since. “Where in the past, my No. 6 guy has been able to average like a 42, 43 … I have a feeling this year 6 and 7 are going to probably be in the high 40s.
“I don’t know what the other schools have. Derryfield’s always a good program. Gilford’s always a good program. Lebanon’s (moved) down, they’ve always been a good program. … The whole thing is to keep the kids humble.”
The Falcons have more to work with than most teams, however. Lucey and fellow senior Colin Plumb played well enough in the states last year to qualify for the individual tournament, and senior Jack Olson and sophomore Jason Howe have shot in the high-30s and low-40s figures necessary to challenge them for the top spots on the ladder.
And then there’s Bow’s trump card. The Falcons have an ace in senior Doug Champagne, the division’s reigning individual champion. Champagne is coming off of another busy summer, with the State Am, state stroke play championship and New Hampshire Open among his engagements, and he said the competition has raised his game.
The numbers show as much. Champagne played to a 35.1 nine-hole scoring average – including a staggering 4-under 32 – in seven tryout rounds.
“I struggled with the mental game of it. I was lacking confidence over last summer, which was not helping my game at all,” said Champagne, the team’s other captain. “But I got it back in the fall, and hopefully I have it again here.”
“It’s a stabilizing thing for the team, to know you have that (player),” Seraikas said. “They know you have that if it’s a bad day.”
With Champagne leading a talent-laden ladder, Bow goes into every match with an advantage. The Falcons are good, they know they’re good – and in practices, an intra-competitiveness grows as they try to show who’s best.
“This group of kids, everyone is so good that it makes everyone compete for a spot, which makes everyone get better,” Lucey said. “I’m our 2, I’m good, Doug’s better. It keeps me going. The kid behind me, it’s going to keep him going. It keeps everyone getting better, which allows us to just worry about ourselves.
“We don’t have to worry about anyone else. We compete with ourselves.”
That appetite for competition has fueled Bow’s talent and helps the team embrace the championship stage. Champagne wasn’t the only one playing tournaments over the summer; Lucey competed in both the Concord and Pembroke Pines Country Club championships, and Olson, Lucey, Howe and Plumb all took top-five spots in Concord CC’s junior championship, which Olson won.
“There’s a difference between going out and playing with your friends versus playing in competitive situations,” Seraikas said. “You’ve got to learn how to play in that kind of situation, and I think that’s what these kids do. They go out, they get involved in summer tournaments all over New England and New Hampshire, and that helps their game.”
Not to mention what it does to prepare the Falcons for a regular season in which team after team will be gunning to bring the Bow machine down.
“There’s definitely more pressure, but we’ve all played in tournaments lately where we’ve handled pressure, and we understand where we are right now,” Champagne said. “We know teams are going to come after us. We just need to stay composed and play our games.”
Sam Windsor and Collin Cook are the other seniors on a roster that is also being set up for the future. Howe (42.7 preseason average) has emerged as a low scorer in just his second year, and freshmen Jake Mielcarz, nephew of nine-time State Am champion Bob Mielcarz, and Zach Townsend are talented prospects poised to lead Bow’s eventual youth movement.
“I have six freshmen, and some of them, they’re getting better. Those kids are going to be the team next year,” Seraikas said. “I’ve got a couple of sophomores who can play. Are we going to have the ringer? No, but I think some of these kids are going to be players.”
The transition will take place under another coach, however. This team will be Seraikas’s 18th and last as the Falcons’ head coach, as he’s stepping down after the year. Bow Memorial School teacher Matt Davis, who works in the pro shop at the Falcons’ home course of Canterbury Woods Country Club, will take his place.
“It just felt right,” he said. “My thinking is it’s time for somebody else to take it over. … It’s just a logical thing for (Davis) to go in.
“I’ll try to leave it in as best condition as I can.”
A fifth straight title would be a difficult ending to top.
(Drew Bonifant can be reached at 369-3340, abonifant@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @dbonifant.)