by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi
Coach Rob Pittman took the casual approach with his team in his pre-state tournament motivational speech last week.
“I got them all together on the practice green and said ‘there’s a reason you’re here and when you get to that first tee and they say representing Lancaster in front of 200 people, you’re gonna be nervous. But you can’t win the championship with the first swing. So don’t try. And don’t worry about that first swing. Go out there and have fun and let’s win a state championship.’”
And that’s exactly what his six overachieving underclassmen did, posting a team low score of 342 to claim the Virginia High School League’s 2021 Class 1state golf championship.
There was a seven-hour gap between that initial rah rah, go-get-em speech and the final score being tabulated Monday, October 11, at the mountainous Oak Mille Golf Resort course in Laurel Fork. In between, there was a lot of stress.
“Hole #10 was so funny,” said LHS junior Eli Pittman. “I was watching coach Rob pacing back and forth and back and forth….
