Senior co-captain Kimmy Jolie has followed in her sister’s footsteps as an Evanston golfer and captain, but now she wants to play her best when it matters the most, like her sister.

Liz Jolie, who graduated in 2016, came within just three shots of reaching the IHSA sectional tournament her senior season. She fired a career-best round of 88, including four birdies on her last day of high school golf.

“My sister was a really impressive captain and player,” Jolie says. “I definitely want to live up to that and compete with what she was able to do.”

Jolie, along with fellow seniors Anna TerMolen and Clara Lynk have been the captains of the team since junior year and coach Karilyn Joyce appreciates what they have done for the program.

“They’re leaders, they’re great kids,” Joyce says. “I look forward to them having a great season, they’ve always been leaders ever since they’ve been on the team, it just works.”

Since the three were captains last year, the other players haven’t needed to adjust to new leadership, which is a big advantage.

“The other players know how we operate,” Jolie says. “They know what we care about and we’ll maintain the same goals as we did last year. We also have the same attitude as last year and no one has to readjust to what we want to do for our team.”

The captains strive to lead the team by example, a big part of that is keeping a positive attitude on and off the course.

“We try to have a good atmosphere where everyone feels comfortable playing,” Lynk says. “Golf can be a very mental game and we don’t want people to just stress themselves out and make it worse. You want to have fun playing golf, not make it a stressful environment.”

The Kits ended last season strong, posting scores of 415 and 405 at the CSL conference tournament and IHSA regionals in the last two weeks of last season, finishing fifth and sixth in those tournaments respectively.

“Last year our team had a great season,” TerMolen says. “It was one of the best seasons ever. It was the highest regionals finish girls golf has had in a long time at Evanston.”

At the regional tournament, Evanston used scores of 99 by Echo Allen, a 101 by Katie Gemmell, a 102 by Drew Patterson and a 103 by Jolie. The score needed to make it to sectionals as an individual was a 98. Allen, Gemmell and Patterson are all returning underclassmen.

Both the players and coaches believe that after the late season surge last year, they have the talent to make a deep postseason run this season.

“I really think we have a lot of potential to do well,” Lynk says. “I think we played the best we’ve ever played last year and we had a bunch of good tournaments. We’ll be able to go back to those tournaments with a good positive attitude.”

The captains also agreed that this is the best they’ve ever been playing individually.

Joyce has added some tournaments to the schedule this year against some of the top teams in the state.

“I’ve added two more tournaments this season,” Joyce says. “I think that they’re ready for it and they’re excited about it. I’m looking forward to it and I think they’ll do great.”

The entire varsity team returning from last year. Since each player has experience, the girls have a good chance to improve upon last year’s historic season.

“Because of our experience and drive as a team we have a really great chance to do very well this year,” TerMolen says.

Ellie Garry