Photo by Jake McNeill: Marshall senior Luke Ehlers reads the 18th green during a boys golf invitational at Marshall Golf Club on Wednesday. Ehlers placed first out of 81 golfers to lead Marshall to a win at the 15-team meet.

MARSHALL — Luke Ehlers led a group of four Marshall Tigers in the top 10 of the Marshall Boys Golf Invitational on Wednesday. The Tigers put together a team score of 296, beating out runner-up Lakeview by 21 strokes and third-place Dawson-Boyd by 32.

“I’m just so proud of the way they’re carrying themselves out there, because we all know in golf that it’s really easy to have a couple of bad shots and. Just pout, kind of get after yourself and just mope around or throw a club or whatever,” Marshall head coach Kari Ehlers said. “But they’re just really staying in it mentally, and I think that’s where they probably are a step ahead of some of the other teams as they’re just willing to be okay with saying, ‘I had a bad shot or a bad hole, I’m starting over and I’m going to go after it again.'”

Behind Lakeview’s 317 and Dawson-Boyd’s 328, Canby placed sixth out of 15 teams with a score of 336 while Minneota and Murray County Central took eighth and ninth at 343 and 355. Russell-Tyler-Ruthton’s 384 and Yellow Medicine East’s 395 were good for 10th and 11th, while Tracy-Milroy-Balaton didn’t field a team score.

Ehlers’ individual score of 69 was highlighted by a 4-under front nine, featuring four birdies and no holes over par. He also had another trio of birdies on the back 9 to finish at 3-under, overcoming a double bogey on hole 14 after hitting the ball in the water.

“I just wanted to come out here and play as best I could in these [windy] conditions,” Ehlers said. “Conditions were nice for us today, so I just wanted to get out here, have a smooth swing and just play golf.”

Ehlers said that the team had emphasized thinking outside of the box in practice when thinking about hitting shots, saying that the team wanted to try to shoot flatter shots on windier days such as Wednesday.

“How are we going to make up for not hitting it way up in the wind, where we don’t know how far it’s going to land or where it’s going to go? We’re trying to be strategic about where we hit our balls,” coach Ehlers said.

Deacon Wing shot a career-low round for Marshall, tying Canby’s Jack Abrahamson for fifth place with a 1-over 73. After bogeying the third hole, Wing went 3-under with four birdies from hole 4 through 11.

Elijah Winn and Keegan Fossum rounded out Marshall’s scorers, tying for 10th with a 5-over 77. 

“[Winn] had quite the roller coaster today [with four birdies, five bogeys and a pair of double-bogeys], but what I can say is that it’s not normal for an eighth grader to stay in it mentally after a roller coaster like that, so he’s definitely impressing us and he’s going to have a great career at M-H-S,” coach Ehlers said. She added that Jaylen Koster, who placed 20th with an 83, also  did a good job of straightening out his shot by getting his weight through his swing.

Lakeview had two of the meet’s top three finishers, with Carson Boe placing second with a 2-under 70 and Lane Arends tying Tracy-Milroy-Balaton’s Alex Munson for third at even-par 72.

Boe had a bogey on the par-3 sixth hole, but was otherwise flawless. He went out on a high note as well, notching a birdie on the 17th and an eagle on the 18th.

Arends had a solid front 9, heading into the back at 3-over, but found a rhythm on the back 9. He recorded a birdie on five of his final seven holes, including an eagle on the par-5 18th.

Landon Teske shot an 87 to place 29th and Koven Neuman shot an 88 to tie Dawson-Boyd’s Landon Kemen for 30th in the 81-player field.

The Lakers were aiming to get all of their 100 on the day, Lakeview head coach Sarah Schultz said, noting that all of their scorers shot sub-90 and Ledgen Javens and Trevor Tusberg shot a 93 and 94 respectively.

Minneota’s Owen Dalager shot a 78 to place 12th, while Dawson-Boyd’s Evan Mork took 13th and 14th, shooting a 79 and 80. Carson Stratmoen also shot an 81 for the Blackjacks to tie Marshall’s Aiden Bly and Central Minnesota Christian’s Joseph Graves for 15th.

Kaden Landsman was MCC’s top performer, shooting an 83 to place 20th, while Cooper McCosh led YME in 24th with an 85. RTR was led by Jonah Norgaard in 32nd at 89.

Marshall will compete again at Redwood Falls at 1 p.m. Lakeview, Canby, Minneota, YME, Dawson-Boyd and MCC will send their boys to Countryside Golf Club in Minneota and their girls to Cottonwood Country Club today at 4:30 p.m.