Watkins to golf for Aquinas College

By MICKEY ALVARADOAquinas College’s women’s golf team picked up a WHAC (Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference) championship last season and to defend the title head coach Dan Pupel went to Tecumseh High School and picked up Paige Watkins, a four year starter for the Indians.“Our team GPA is 3.6, so she’s going to fit in real well,” said coach Pupel. “We won the conference title last year so we are the defending champions. I have four seniors but two of them are starters. Our number one and six girls in the starting line up are graduating. And I have two, possibly three girls coming in.”Watkins was one of the Indians’ top leaders, advancing to the Division 3 state meet twice in her career, attending the meet as a sophomore and becoming an All-State team member her final season. She led Tecumseh to an eighth place finish in last year’s state meet by carding 171 (85, 86) at Bedford Valley Golf Course in Battle Creek.“She always steps up,” said Tecumseh head coach Kerry Smith of Watkins’ efforts on the courses. “She was hurt at the beginning of the year and still came to all the matches and was cheering people on.”Watkins recovered and set her sights on improving her overall game, putting in the time and effort to make it happen, all the while keeping her grades up to a 3.65 GPA.Her lowest 18-hole round was 79.“She is so consistent off the tee,” said Smith. “Her game is so solid.”Watkins received both academic and athletic scholarship funding to attend the Grand Rapids facility.Her major study will be in POHI (Physical and Other Health Impairments).“I’ll work with children who have physical and learning disabilities,” she said.