by Nicole Reich ‘17

Sherwood golf was separated into a boys’ fall season and girls’ spring season until 2013, when MCPS decided that the two separate teams would join into one fall co-ed team.

Senior Caitlin Deerin was the first girl to join the co-ed team during her freshman year. Since then, the team has added more female golfers. Currently there are four˗˗Deerin, juniors Jordan Koller and Pooja Ravi, and freshman Kirsten Collins˗˗the most female golfers on the team since it became co-ed.

“I’m glad I got to help start a trend towards more women golfing, especially here at Sherwood,” Deerin said. “I think it’s important for girls to realize that golf, and other sports for that matter, aren’t ever geared towards one gender. Anyone can play a sport and anyone should be able to play a sport without even having to think about their gender, and whether or not that is normal.”

High school co-ed golf features four schools in each match in which the lowest score constitutes a win. Each school sends its top six players, and the top five scores of those players count towards the team’s final score. There is not a requirement for a girl to be among the six players in the matches since not every school has girls on their team.

One difference between genders is that the females play from women’s tees, which yields a shorter yardage. If a girl is not part of the top six, she has the chance to play “lady matches,” which are scored individually.

The first few years Deerin normally played in the lady matches until this year when she was part of the top six in the co-ed matches. However, she recently got severe tennis elbow, causing her to be out for most of the 2016 fall season.

Koller is now the star female player, participating in five of the six co-ed matches. She also has participated in lady matches and on September 21, Koller had an eagle and three birdies, finishing with a 9-hole round of 35 against Winston Churchill.

“We have dedicated players that continue to improve each year, and this year we added two more girls to the team who have a lot of potential in the coming years,” said Koller. After finishing third at districts on October 4, the co-ed team is headed to states at the University of Maryland on October 24.