Flying high

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Mike Walter spends more time looking for his discs than throwing them when he plays disc golf.
‘It takes a couple of hours to play 18 holes,? said Walter, 22. ‘But most of the time is spent in the bushes, searching.?
Disc golf is a growing sport in which round discs are thrown toward a basket, 3 feet off the ground. The rules of golf are applied.
‘You play in the woods and use natural terrain as your obstacles,? said Shawn Speaker, Holly State Recreation Area park supervisor.
Speaker opened a disc golf course in the Holly State Recreation Area on June 2. The course consists of 18 par-three holes. Winding paths take the players through oak and pine forests, creating an obstacle-rich playing field.
Since opening, Speaker’s course has been having a solid turn-out.
‘Generally, I would say that there are about a dozen players on the course at any given time,? Speaker said.
Professional courses are not the only way to enjoy the game, however. Goodrich resident, Dustin Brooks said he plays in his backyard.
‘We put one of the baskets across the yard and throw toward it,? said Brooks, 19. ‘It’s a lot harder than it looks.?
An array of discs are available to players, each with a different weight and flight pattern.
‘There are different weights and shapes,? Rob Haas, 22, explained while he played on Speaker’s course. ‘Some fly left, some fly right, some up, some down. It also depends on your toss.?
Discs range from $6 to $20 and are available at sporting equipment stores and online.
With the weather prompting people to enjoy the outdoors, disc golf will be at its prime.
‘It’s just a fun activity that people of different ability levels can all enjoy,? said Speaker.

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A new week and a fresh start were on tap for the Clarkston volleyball team.
The Wolves dropped a three-game opener to both defending OAA champs Birmingham Seaholm and a five-game heartbreaker to Farmington last week. The team returned from a 3-2 weekend with another OAA foe on the docket.
And after a 2-10 record in conference record in 2005-?06, the Wolves had reason to start working on their 0-2 conference standing.
The Wolves (4-4, 1-2 OAA) responded with a 3-0 sweep of Birmingham Groves (7-5-2, 0-3 OAA) on Dec. 18 at Clarkston High School.
‘Sometimes you go out there (Portage) and you get beat up and you come back and play in your league, and I was worried they wouldn’t come in with confidence, but I think they realized they had potential to play a lot better,? Coach Kelly Avenall said.
‘They’re doing a great job playing as a team right now,? she added.
Falcons Coach Jen Wind said her team was a bit apathetic on the court, leading to their third conference loss of the season.
‘We were just complacent a little bit,? Wind said.
‘We are a much tougher team than we showed tonight and I wish they would have come out and played a little bit harder and played like they did this weekend and like we’ve seen them play before.?
Groves went 4-1 in their weekend play, at the Groves Invitational the school hosts.
In the first game, Clarkston surged to a 16-10 lead and pushed ahead to the win 25-17.
Groves fought back from a 21-19 deficit in the second game, when Marilynn Porritt’s cross-court kill closed it out, 25-23.
The decisive game was much closer and with the Falcons ahead 24-22 and ready to close out the game, the Wolves made a comeback at the right time.
Emily Parkin served up the winning four points for Clarkston and several Groves hits were too long and well out-of-bounds in the Wolves? 26-24 victory.
‘We had a couple of situations like that this weekend where we were down three or four points against a team and we came back and won,? Avenall said.
It’s gaining that confidence to know that it doesn’t matter where you’re at in a match, you can come back and win.?
Wind said the Falcons were their own toughest opponents in the game.
‘You can’t make error when the score is that close. You can’t have those little mental errors when you’re not focused for that half-second, they’ll take advantage of it,? Wind said.
‘We totally beat ourselves tonight’that wasn’t my team out there today,? she added.
Clarkston resumes play after the holiday break on Jan. 4 at Troy.

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