Gateway's Giger also earns state tourney berth
For the first time ever, both a boys’ and girls’ golf team from Osceola County will compete for a state championship in the same year.
St. Cloud High pulled off the feat on Tuesday, when the girls’ team, led by Jenna Barnett’s three-over-par 75, helped the Lady Bulldogs secure a third place finish in the Class 3A Region 2 Tournament with a 316 team score. With the finish, they secured an automatic berth in next week’s state tournament at Mission Inn Resort and Club, which tees off Tuesday.
In addition, Gateway's William Giger shot 77 at Dubsdread Golf Course in Orlando Monday to earn a spot in in the Class 2A state tournament.
The Lady Bulldogs will be joined by the boy’s team, which finished fourth in Monday’s Region 2 event. The Bulldogs (293) narrowly missed an automatic qualifying bid by one shot — trailing Dr. Phillips (292), Winter Park (291) and champion Windermere (285). But on Wednesday afternoon, it was announced that St. Cloud qualified as one of four at-large teams that will be invited to the championship.
“An incredible roller coaster full of emotions for the past two days,” St. Cloud coach Jim Endicott said. “On Monday morning, if you would have told me our guys would shoot 11 shots better than we did in districts, I would have bet the ranch that we would have automatically advanced and probably given you even money that we would have actually have won regionals. Instead we had to sweat out an at-large bid.
“Then Tuesday comes along and our girls are even a higher seed then the boys were and we get off to a horrible start with five players going a collective 18 over par on the first five holes. I give them all a lot of credit for righting the ship, but it was not a good start and they showed a lot of character in fighting back.”
Endicott went on to say he was proud of both teams in creating history. “Last year, we became just the second girls’ team in county history to qualify for the state championship as a team. More than two decades ago, the St. Cloud boys’ team sent a team to the state tournament three straight years but that was a long, long time ago. This is the first time that both a boys and girls team from Osceola County qualified for the state tournament in the same year and that is a lot to be proud of.”
In the boys’ tournament on Monday, Gunnar Green turned in a solid four-birdie, two-bogey round of 70 to lead a contingent of four-sub 80 rounds by Bulldogs. Alexander Owen posted an even par 72, Espn Pool was two-over at 74 and Ethan Parrish was at 77 as Bulldogs compiled a season-low team round of 5-over 293.
But with little wind and near-perfect scoring conditions – combined with this being one of the tougher 3A regionals in the state — St. Cloud could manage no better than a fourth place finish overall.
“There were some terrific rounds posted on Monday by a bunch of players,” Endicott added. “Last year 293 wins three of the four regionals and gets you an automatic bid in all four so it was a little hard to shoot that score and half to wait to see if it was good enough to get an at-large bid.”
Although Endicott said the 6,792-yard course was set up tough, 13 different golfers ended up breaking par, including individual medalist Shawn Coultoff of West Orange, who posted a four-under 67. Coultoff, South Lake’s Braden Hawkins (69) and Olympia’s Aaron Beach (69) punched their tickets to the state tournament as at-large individual qualifiers.
Although they will not be moving on to the state tournament, Celebration had an outstanding day on the course as well, finishing in a very respectable seventh place at 304 – just 12 total shots back of an automatic qualifying spot.
The Storm was led with counting scores from Will Cooper (73), Ethan Badillo (74), George Aguilera (78) and Jeremiah Bianchi (79). The 304 total was a season low for the Storm and was a full 13 shots better than their third place showing in the District 7 tournament a week earlier.
After a second-place finish in the district tournament a week earlier, things did not get off to a good start for the Lady Bulldogs on Tuesday. Freshman Karolyna Adams took a quadruple bogey on her second hole and stood at five over after just four holes. She would rally with five birdies down the stretch to post an 80.
Jenna Barnett triple bogeyed number four and was four over after four, but played the final 14 holes in one-under to shoot 75 and tie for the 10th best round of the day. Nadia Burda matched Adams with an 80 and Cayden Chellacombe posted 11 pars on her way to an 81 to round out the scoring for St. Cloud.
Harmony and Celebration also qualified for the Region 2 Championship, giving Osceola County a record five golf teams (2 boys, 3 girls) to qualify for regionals in the same year. Harmony finished in eighth place overall with a 371 total; while Celebration was 11th with a 423.
Top golfers from Harmony included Jordan Pigeon (82) and Norah Baker (91); while Celebration was led by Arianna Leon (76) and Erin Ozyurek (96).
