By Ed Piper
There's no doubt that senior Kaden Ward, a lead golfer on the La Jolla High boys golf team, has played through thick and thin the last four years as COVID raged and as we collectively came out of the pandemic.
The elder member of Coach Christie Quinn's 2023 squad--who carried a 4.38 differential (stroke equivalent over par) into the CIF team and individual competition at Steele Canyon Golf Course Wed., May 10--experienced his freshman year in Spring 2020 being truncated by the shutdown of school, with classes going on distance-learning after "Black Friday", Fri., March 13, 2020, when the virus hit the area.
Most of his Class of 2023 stayed on distance through much of Kaden's sophomore year, with a plethora of sports suddenly being declared in session in January 2021 while on-campus classes still were barely populated, if at all.
By Spring 2022, Ward's junior year, much of interscholastic sports had been resumed, with the dread Fall 2021 "call to see if there was an exposure" terrorizing school sports' schedules if even a single member of a sports team were exposed to COVID (in which case a game or match was cancelled on short notice) waning and mostly disappearing.
It has been a wondrous year, in comparison, this, his senior year. Quinn has a sixsome operating at a high level, good enough to be rated 12th in San Diego CIF--Divisions 1 and 2 combined.
So, Kaden teed off at Steele Canyon at 12:55 p.m. Wednesday, part of a foursome from various schools performing at similar levels. (Golf is very unforgiving on that count--the differential doesn't lie.)
That was on the front 9 on Ranch 1, it is designated. Ten minutes earlier, teammate Justin Woods, with a team-leading 2.96 differential, teed off on the same nine. He was part of a different foursome. That's the way CIF works.
LJHS Athletic Director Aaron Quesnell, Quinn's predecessor as coach, was on hand to help run things for the San Diego Section. On the practice green, he was complimenting Woods' fellow sophomores, Nate Takata (6.11 differential) and Seigo Lavinsky (10.59) on their Viking lacrosse team's edging Del Norte 7-6 the night before in the first round of the CIF playoffs.
He was very involved in coaching them up, too. as they lined up their practice putts. Gabriel Lopez, another sophomore, was also there. He's at 6.82 and fifth on the team, so his score will be super important in the team event. (Six play, five lowest scores count for the team total.)
Nathan Wittkow, the sole junior, warmed up on his own, hitting drives on the practice range. He carries a 3.04 stroke differential. The slender golfer has had it easy compared to Ward, not going through the high school turmoil of the "Black Friday" start of COVID--he did it in middle school.
"Up-and-coming" is the way Quinn described her sophomore foursome. They are the future of the team after Ward graduates this June, and Wittkow plays his final year next Spring.
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