DARLINGTON — Al three Montgomery County boys golf teams are gearing up for the final few weeks of the season. The first big meet of the last several weeks took place on Saturday as the Chargers hosted the Sagamore Conference Golf Meet at Rocky Ridge Golf Club. While Tri-West was able to bring home the SAC championship with a 308, North Montgomery shot a season best 338 to take second place after winning their only SAC title last year. Southmont had a good showing and placed third with a 356 and Crawfordsville struggled on the day shooting a 372 to finish in seventh..
The Chargers were led by junior Neal Jeffery who continues to have a great season. Jeffery finished tied for second overall and shot a 73. Alex Chapman carded an 85, Beckett Martin an 87, and Kelby Harwood shot a 93 with Rohen Barnes shooting a 94. Charger coach Bob Ryker started by congratulating the Bruins for their impressive season and another great showing in claiming the SAC title.
“First and foremost congrats to Tri-West and coach Pemberton,” Ryker said. “He’s done a great job with them and they deserved to win for sure. It’s tough to win when you see the scores that they’re putting up. I told our guys before we started that as long as we play well, the placing doesn’t matter. Neal shooting a 73 is pretty impressive then I’m really happy with guys like Kelby, Alex and Beckett all shooting very well. Neal specifically has had an incredible season. He’s been amazing for us all year and is an incredible leader. He’s someone our other guys look to up to because he’s always out here working on his game and trying to get better.”
Southmont was led by Austin Foley’s 77 and had Cole Rhoads shoot a personal best 88. Jesse Smith shot a 94 and Jimmy Clester ended his day with a 97. Jacob Fox rounded out the scores for the Mounties with a 98. Southmont coach Bill Whalen was thrilled with how his team performed on the day.
“Our goal is to be playing our best golf at this point in the season and today was a great first step in doing that,” Whalen said. “The key for us we have to build on this and can’t be satisfied with just playing well today. I really didn’t see us coming in third but that’s why we go out and play this game. Every team in this conference has beaten us coming in so you just never know how things are going to turn out. Tri-West has been the cream of the crop all season long and North is a very good team especially when they’re here playing on their home course. To finish only behind those two teams, I was thrilled with how we played.”
Crawfordsville had junior Tanner Gilland tied with Jeffery for second overall as led CHS with a 73. Braxton Smith ended his round with a 97, Thomas Bowling a 98, Henry Hoar shot a 104, and Camden Dowden rounded out the scoring for CHS with a 105. It wasn’t the showing the Athenians or coach Tom Perkins wanted on the day and Perkins did say how his team would learn from this to play better down the stretch.
“I’m disappointed with our performance,” Perkins said. “We had a great match on Wednesday and shot really well so I thought that would carry over but it didn’t. Tanner was doing Tanner things and I’m proud of him for that. He was dialed in and battled through a few miscues on the back nine but a 73, I’ll take that any day. What we learned about seeing what both North and South shot is that their depth showed in their scores. Our depth just simply wasn’t there.”
The All-Conference teams were decided and announced at the conclusion of the meet. Jeffery, Martin, and Chapman along with Foley and Gilland all earned All-SAC First-Team honors.
All three county schools will meet up again on Thursday back at Rocky Ridge for 18 more holes as they all fight for the county title. Southmont comes in as the defending county champions. Cville, North, and South will all tee it up at 3:30.
