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JAMESTOWN, NC – With four of its five players claiming the top spots on the leaderboard, Northeast Academy won the 2025 North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association’s Class 1A team golf championship played here earlier this week.

Led by freshman Preston Ordnung, who claimed individual medalist honors with back-to-back par (72) rounds, Northeast carded a total team score of 453. That was 83 strokes better than second place finisher Cape Fear Christian Academy’s team score of 536.

Quincy Ordnung, an eighth-grader at Northeast, shot a 9 over par 153 (rounds of 76 and 77) to finish second in the individual standings.

Chance Lassiter, the lone senior on the Northeast team, placed third with a 12 over par 156 (rounds of 76 and 80) while junior Judson Smith carded a 13 over par 157 (rounds of 77 and 80).

Jake Parks, a sophomore, was in sixth place with an 18 over par 162 (rounds of 80 and 82).

Northeast junior Jaden Medford, playing independently, was ninth overall, carding a 174 (rounds of 84 and 90).

The 36-hole state championship was held May 12-13 at Jamestown Park Golf Club, located between Greensboro and High Point. The par 72 course had a total length of 6,700 yards, but perhaps played a bit longer due to soggy conditions.

“We played in the rain on Monday for about two and one-half hours, then there was a three-hour delay due to heavy storms, and we finally got a chance to finish the 18 holes,” said Northeast golf coach Ellen Ordnung. “There was a little rain on Tuesday, but we were able to play through it. The greens were okay, but the fairways were very soggy. There was a lot of standing water.”

She stressed that her team handled the weather conditions very well.

“We’ve got a young team, age wise, but they are mature when it comes to golf,” coach Ordnung noted. “They’ve learned how to fight through the bogeys and double bogeys and concentrate on the next hole.

“They are a great group of kids, very coachable,” she added. “We’ve been at this since the first week of March and they have worked hard to improve their game each day.”

That hard work allowed Northeast to finish undefeated in the regular season of the Tarheel Independent Conference and then they won the conference tournament title, leading Ordnung to capture Coach of the Year honors.

However, the coach needed her team to be “battle tested” for the state tournament. With that in mind, she entered Northeast in two big tournaments. One was a single-day event at Wedgewood Golf Course in Wilson where they finished fourth among 20 teams. The other was at Pawleys Island, South Carolina for the prestigious Palmetto Championship, a three-day tournament – on three different courses – hailed as one of the premier high school golf events in the country. Twenty-nine different teams participated and Northeast Academy finished in fifth place.

“Both of those tournaments got us mentally ready to compete for our state championship,” coach Ordnung said. “We felt like we had something to prove after finishing fourth at the state tournament last year.”

As for having the opportunity to coach her grandsons (Preston and Quincy), coach Ordnung admitted she enjoyed it.

“But I treated them like everybody else on the team…they didn’t get any special favors from me,” said Ordnung, who has been coaching young athletes since 1971, including 20 years as a golf coach at Chowan University.

“Golf is an enjoyable sport to coach and it’s easy when you have good kids with great attitudes like this year’s team at Northeast,” stressed Ordnung, now in her fifth year at the school. “Plus I enjoy having a lot of parental support.”

Perhaps year number six for coach Ordnung at Northeast Academy will bring another state title.

“We’re only graduating one player off this team, so our future looks bright,” she concluded.