The River Falls High School girls golf team has set one major goal for the season: Shoot a low enough score at regionals to ad – vance to sectionals as a team.

That goal of course requires a whole host of smaller goals, including playing smart golf, consistently lowering scores, and hav – ing ace junior Mahlia McCane continue to lead the team in scoring average.

Through the first month of the season, the overall team scoring average has steadily dropped and the girls are playing better than last season. Throughout the 2021 campaign, River Falls consistently finished third in the Big Rivers Conference standings just below New Richmond and Hudson.

Despite lower scores to start the 2022 season, River Falls has dropped in the BRC standings and is regularly finishing fourth, as the Chippewa Falls Cardinals made massive improvements throughout the offseason and are now regularly a third-place team. River Falls head coach Tim LaVold spoke about offseason growth around the conference.

“We’re scoring a little bit better than we did last year as a team,” LaVold said. “But Chippewa Falls improved a ton, so they’ve been beating us. We’ve been ending up in fourth place in the BRC instead of third.” There are eight Big Rivers teams, many of which aren’t competitive near the top of the standings. Rice Lake barely has enough girls to field a team, Eau Claire North hasn’t made a run to the top of the conference in years, and a couple of teams only have one great player.

New Richmond remains the best team in the conference, with Hudson trailing as a close second. River Falls and Chippewa Falls continue to battle for the third slot among the Big Rivers standings. Hudson has beat New Richmond a couple of times this season and River Falls has defeated Chi-Hi occasionally too.

“We’ve beaten Chippewa a couple of times in some 18-hole matches and we tied them yesterday,” LaVold said. “We just hav – en’t beaten them in a BRC match yet.” Although River Falls is now settling in as the fourth-best team in the conference, LaVold is still confident in his team’s ability to get through regionals as a team. He spoke about that major goal for this season.

“Our goal as a team is to make it to the sectional tournament,” LaVold said. “There are eight teams in our region, the tournament is at Mill Run (in Eau Claire) and we’ve al – ready played well there this year. They take four out of eight teams (from regionals) and if we play our game, we’ll advance.” Although River Falls is already in a good position to advance to sectionals, that hasn’t stopped the Wildcat roster from putting in additional work outside of practice to continue improving. According to LaVold, this roster is dedicated to getting better and chasing wins both individually and as a team.

“The kids are working hard,” LaVold said. “We’ve had kids that will grab the shag bag and stay after practice and do extra chipping and putting.” Perhaps the most competitive girl on the team is the aforementioned McCane, who posted a career-best score of 77 at the Old Abe Invitational at the Mill Run Golf Course in Eau Claire on Tuesday, Aug. 23.

McCane is now a month into her junior campaign, which she is looking to make as successful as her freshman and sophomore seasons. As a freshman, she was named second-team all-conference and was selected first-team all-conference as a sophomore.

According to LaVold, McCane is looking to be the Big Rivers Conference player of the year this season, in addition to qualifying for state as an individual. LaVold spoke about McCane’s competitive fire.

“She just has a tenacious desire to win,” LaVold said. “She wants to win desperately, and she goes out and does it. She has a goal to make it to state and she has a very good chance to do that.” It bodes well for River Falls and McCane that the regional tournament is at Mill Run in Eau Claire, the site of her personal-best round and where the Wildcats posted a team score of 372. That score trailed New Richmond by nine, Hudson by five and it beat Chi-Hi by more than 20 strokes.

“(Mahlia) shot 77 at Mill Run and was the best score at the tournament by anyone not named Ava Salay,” LaVold said. “I think Ava shot 69 and Mahlia shot 77 to finish second. That was a good day.” The Wildcats’ most recent match was on Thursday, Sept. 8, at the Turtleback Golf Course in Rice Lake. River Falls earned a third-place finish with a team score of 183, trailing New Richmond’s 180 and Hudson’s winning score of 166.

River Falls individual scores include juniors McCane and Ellie Krueger shooting 44, senior Mollie Schmidt posted a 47 and senior Alisha Latham rounded out the scoring with a 48. The next meet on the schedule for River Falls is on Tuesday, Sept. 13, at Spring Valley for a BRC event. That meet is slated to begin at 3:45 p.m.