MORGANTOWN — The 2023 WVSSAC state golf tournament will be held Tuesday and Wednesday next week, October 3rd and 4th, on The Jones Course at Oglebay Resort in Wheeling with eight teams and eight individual qualifiers making up the 40-player field for each class.
Locally, both Morgantown and University qualified as the top two finishers in Class AAA Region 1. The Mohigans earned the top spot in the regional by way of a 230 team score, seven strokes ahead of the second-place Hawks at 237, who only bested Wheeling Park (238) by one stroke to earn their way to Wheeling on Tuesday.
UHS senior Landon Spiker was the medalist on the day with a 74 to take first overall in the region.
MHS will return to The Jones Course after making an appearance last season, with three of its four players returning making the return trip. Juniors Gabriel Watson and Andrew Sheets and sophomore Solas Chinn-Kreiner all competed in the state tournament as a team in 2022. They’re joined this year by the lone senior on the team, Braxton Martucci.
MHS head coach Joel Barrett said his team enjoyed a practice round on Wednesday and tallied a favorable 233, and will be hoping to carry that momentum when the scoring really matters.
“We know what it feels like to win on the Jones Course now after OVACs and what it’s like to outlast teams on a difficult course,” Barrett said. “We know the course is going to be set up difficult like it always is for the state tournament so the practice round is important for us to get our game plans in order and lock ourselves in on them.”
Barrett said being familiar with the course helps with being able to play the shots that are known from previous rounds but that they will still approach each shot carefully.
“We know where we typically want to hit the ball,” he said. “(Holes) 17 and 18 can be difficult if you let them get away from you and a lot of the greens can be complex so we will strategize as best we can and focus on the plan.”
Across town for the Hawks of UHS, the Region 1 champion Spiker will be joined by Daniel Grabo, Adam Argabrite, and Owen Estel.
“We are very happy to be playing next week after making it by just one in the regionals,” UHS head coach Barry Kolar said. “It’s stroke play for two days for 36 holes and we will need to stay focused. Like our regional, we make one or two more errors and we wouldn’t be going to states. At the same time, we can probably find seven or eight shots that we left out there.”
Both the Mohigans and Hawks will begin their tournament on hole 10 on the back nine on Tuesday.
Grabo will begin the day for UHS at 9:25 a.m. with his teammates following him every ten minutes after that, Argobrite at 9:35 a.m., Estel at 9:45 a.m., and Spiker at 9:55 a.m.
Morgantown will begin about 30 minutes later beginning with Martucci at 10:25 a.m., followed by Sheets, Watson, and Chinn-Kreiner at 10:35, 10:45, and 10:55.
Tee times for Wednesday will be determined based on results after round one.
