After a six-stroke finish over Franklin in last weekend’s regional to claim the third and final advancing spot, Center Grove girls golf team tees off at the state finals today. Senior Meg Fosnot, the team’s lowest score with a 77 last weekend, is ready to return to the state match, after advancing as an individual last season.

This season, Fosnot’s teammates — junior Lanie DeHaven, sophomore Sage Parsetich, freshmen Abby Rich and Camille Short — will also play at state.

“Going out there it’s basically going to be a really great experience, and we will see what state is like,” DeHaven said, talking about a young team. “We do have a really high chance of placing.”

The team played Prairie View, the state course, early in the season, finishing 5th in an 18-team invitational.

“Prairie View is a challenging course, but will give up low scores if you play well. I think the biggest challenge will be dealing with nerves and pressure. I expect us to handle both of those fairly well,” Coach Cale Hoover said.

Fosnot is the only one with experience at the state finals, and this is the first time in five years the full team has advanced to state. Fosnot hopes to use her experiences last season to lead the team to the podium.

“We just want to go out there and hopefully tear up the course, and we just want to beat everybody,” Fosnot said.

“We have set a goal of finishing with a medal, which means top 4. We would love to win and will do our best, but that does mean beating several teams who we have yet to beat,” Hoover said.

Already this season, Center Grove has defeated Franklin, Columbus North and Carmel in dual matches, as well as defeating Franklin to win the county title. But, Hoover knows that in order for the team to beat the top schools in the state, they need to have every golfer shoot a low score at the same time.

“If we could get four to all play their best on the same day, we would shoot a great score for us. We would love to get four or all five shooting in the 70s.”

Center Grove tees off at Prairie View Golf Course in Carmel this morning, with Camille Short first off the tee for Center Grove at 9:48 a.m. Rich (9:57 a.m.), Parsetich (10:06 a.m.), DeHaven (10:15 a.m.) and Fosnot (10:24 a.m.) all follow. Check @cg_sports on Twitter throughout the day for updates.