The Battle Mountain High School boys golf team turned in a fourth-place finish at the Division III North Regional Championship on Thursday, May 12, at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Stateline.
The Longhorns shot 546 and were one spot away from advancing to state tournament. North Tahoe won the regional title with a score of 458. Whittell (481) and Incline (493) were second and third, respectively, and were the final teams to qualify for the state tournament.
Yerington was fifth at 556 and Sierra Lutheran (566) was sixth. Wells (570) rounded out the scores, while Sage Ridge, and Jackpot did not have enough golfers to record a team score.
“I have been going to Edgewood for 15 years now as a high school golf coach and I have never seen the greens play so tough,” said BMHS coach Roger Wallock. “They were fast and some of the pin locations were brutal (four putts being very common). The scores upon first look are very high, even for the elite golfers in our league, however with the obvious usual difficulty of Edgewood (lots of water and sand) the greens made shooting low very difficult.”
Incline’s Mitchell Cornell was the individual champion for a second season a row. He shot a 6-over par 78 to win by four strokes. Yerington’s Griffin Cooper was second with a 82. North Tahoe’s Quinn Early also shot 82 but finished third on the scorecard tiebreaker.
North Tahoe’s Conor Hipsley (85), Murphy Scott (89) and Isaac Mozen (90) were fourth, fifth and sixth.
Alan Rangel led Battle Mountain with a round of 97 to finish 10th overall and qualified for the state tournament. Austin Wallock tied for 17th with Wells’ Luke Escamilla at 105 and both players advanced to the state championships.
“I was very proud of our team with it’s improvements this year and their work ethic and to actually place fourth was a huge moral victory for us,” Wallock said. “I am very excited for Alan and Austin to get to play another week at the state’s highest level of high school competition. When they posted their 97 and 105, neither felt that their score was good enough to get them in but as groups kept coming in and scores were posted higher than that, the realization that it was possible started creeping in.”
Brody Young tied for 22nd with a round of 110 and Alex Lopez and Noah Villanueva shot 119 and 120, respectively. Jacob Turner rounded out the scores with a 161.
Rangel and Wallock played the first 18 holes of the NIAA State Golf Championships on Tuesday in Pahrump at Mountain Falls Golf Course. The final 18 holes are set for today (Wednesday). For full results visit www.niaa.com.
Needles, Calif., The Meadows and Lake Mead qualified from the Division III South. Needles won the tournament with a 446, while The Meadows shot 447 and Lake Mead 450.
“Battle Mountain golf, after such a tough season, represented well at the zone tournament,” Wallock said.
