Freshmen, junior high golfers to face Class 5A powers

A young Warren Central golf team is headed to the Class 5A Tournament that begins Wednesday at the Tupelo Country Club.

All four of the Viking golfers who will play in the tournament are freshmen and junior high players.

“We’re a really young team, but it’s a really good team, too,” said Viking captain Dylan Bradley, a 15-year-old freshman.

Bradley will be joined in Tupelo by fellow freshman and co-captain Will Burnett and eighth graders Kade Oldenberg and Todd Davidson. The team will be without seventh grader Parker Rutherford, who will miss the tournament for an undisclosed reason.

The Vikings qualified for the state tournament after finishing third in their district tournament at Castlewoods in Jackson.

“We’ll definitely be the youngest team there,” Bradley said.

“Every group I played in this year, I was the youngest guy in it. I think everybody on our team could say that,” Burnett added.

“I got the medalist at a tournament at Eagle Ridge and the older guys didn’t like it,” Bradley said.

Bradley shot a 79 to win the six-team tournament hosted by Hinds Community College.

A member of the Mississippi Junior Golf Association, Bradley is the only Viking to have played on the Tupelo Country Club course.

“It’s a nice course. I played there three years ago,” Bradley said. “It had some tight fairways and pretty fast greens.”

Bradley and the rest of the Vikings will get to have a practice round today. Madison Central, the defending 5A champ, Northwest Rankin and Tupelo are considered to be the top team favorites.

The Vikings will have to have a good effort from their eighth graders in Oldenberg and Davidson in order to take the place of Rutherford.

Bradley said he and Burnett have averaged in the mid to upper 70s this season.

After the prep season ends, Bradley will again play in the MJGA circuit this summer. Oldenberg will likely play as well. Burnett says he may try and qualify for the Arrowhead Junior Golf tour.