By Rick Woelfel
And then there were three.
Council Rock North will be well represented at the PIAA State golf championship next week. But the Indians won't be attending as a team.
North qualified three players for the individual state tournament at the PIAA Eastern Regional championship on Tuesday at Golden Oaks Golf Club in Fleetwood. Freshman Zach Herr shot an even-par 72 to wind up alone in second place in the 64-man field, one shot behind the winner, Nicholas Reach of Scranton
Prep, who fired a 1-under par 71.
Senior Blayze DiPasquale shot 74 to tie for fifth and earn his first state-tournament trip. Junior Brandon Dalinka, who won the regional title a year ago, shot 75 to tie for ninth place.
All three will be in the field when the PIAA state tournament begins next Monday at Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York.
Three other Suburban One players will join them. Peter Eiler of Council Rock
South shot a 74 to wind up part of the fifth-place tie. Mike Johnson of
Hatboro-Horsham shot 75 to finish in a tie for ninth, while Russ Hartung of
Central Bucks East signed for a 76 to wind up tie for 15th.
Two other SOL players missed the cut. Ben Cooley of Abington, the Suburban
One individual champion, shot 78 and wound up in a nine-man playoff for the last three spots in the state tournament field; he was eventually eliminated. Neshaminy¹s Colby Lederer wound up at 80.
Council Rock North fell short in the team event, however. Sophomore Austin
Birkey shot a 94, to go with Herr’s 72, DiPasquale’s 74 and Dalinka’s 75.
The four-man total of 315 left the Indians in third place in the six-team competition, one stroke behind second-place Parkland, which claimed the second and last slot available out of the regional. Scranton Prep from District Two won the team title with a score of 301.
North coach Rich White hinted that Birkey was bothered by the pace of play; it took his group more than six hours, 20 minutes to complete their 18 holes.In the end, it just wasn¹t Birkey¹s day.
“Some days, you just don¹t so well enough,” White said. “Some days you just struggle with every phase of the game.”
Dalinka, the newly crowned District One champion, found himself struggling himself for much of the day.
“I didn¹t have my good game today,” he said. “I couldn’t hit anything good on the first nine holes. I didn’t hit any good shots, I couldn¹t make my putts. I was lipping a lot of putts out, but I just hung in on the back. I made a good birdie on 16, I hit a good shot in there, so I felt good on the last two holes.”
The happiest member of the SOL’s corps of qualifiers was unquestionably
DiPasquale, who, prior to Tuesday, had never qualified for the state tournament.
“It feels good to finally make it,” he said.
DiPasquale felt that getting through a deep District One field was a good warm-up for the regional.
“The (regional) field is about equal strength,” he said. “District One definitely prepares us for this.”
DiPasquale, who birdied the par-4 sixth and par-5 eighth holes, admitted it would have been a letdown to conclude his high-school career without a state tournament trip.
“It would have been pretty disappointing,” he said. “This is my senior year and all. I kind of expected to (qualify).”
Johnson had to get comfortable with the idea of playing in the regional without being surrounded by teammates. A year ago, he was playing for the Hatboro-Horsham team that won the District One team title and wound up qualifying for the state tournament as a team.
Playing in what could have been his final high school event, Johnson, started off well, but at the beginning of his second nine, which began at the 17th and 18th, two of the toughest holes at Golden Oaks, he knew he had to take his game up a notch if he was going to advance.
“I knew I had to make pars going in and play even par to have a good chance,”
Johnson said.
The senior responded by playing even-par golf during a second nine that featured one birdie, at the par-3 fourth hole.
In addition to the six players from Suburban One, one other District One player made the state field. That was Greg Jarmas of Lower Merion, who shot 73 and wound up tied for third.
Of the 26 individual qualifiers coming out of the Eastern Regional,Districts One and Three had the most, with seven each. District Two had six.
- Log in to post comments
0
