If Elijah Block and Rachael Danielson lacked confidence about their golf games, that should have evaporated after the duo shot 36-40=76 Tuesday and finished sixth in the 18 holes Class 2A 2017 State Coed Golf Tournament in Ames at the Coldwater Golf Course. Danielson also finished sixth last week individually in the Class 4A Girls State Tournament at Marshalltown, so she has back-to-back high finishes in prestigious tournaments. Block is home-schooled and is a junior as far as eligibility goes, and Danielson just finished her junior year at Greene County High School. Both are from Jefferson.

Greene County High School competed in the largest of the two classes of competition. A school with a BEDS document enrollment under 350 was in 1A while 350 and above were 2A. The shared program enrollment of Greene County and Paton-Churdan is 353.

Despite being from the “little school,” Block and Danielson finished ahead of 40 teams in the 46 team field. Duos placing ahead of them were from Dowling Catholic (West Des Moines), Ankeny Centennial, Waukee, Iowa City West, and Washington. Rounding on the top 10 were teams from Grinnell, Ankeny Centennial, Nevada, and Linn-Mar (Marion). Most of those schools are much bigger than Greene County High.

Heath Telleen is the girls golf coach for the Rams. “They shot a very nice 76 to place sixth. They shot even par 36 on the front nine and really played well together. Playing against the largest schools in the state and against some of the best individual players, they should feel very proud of their effort today,” said Telleen