Buckhannon Upshur tops stacked field at Polish Pines; Keyser second

Aug. 5—KEYSER, W.Va. — In a stacked field featuring three state-tournament squads from a season ago, Buckhannon-Upshur (164) topped the list at Polish Pines led by low-medalist Isaac Lane, who shot a 39.

Keyser finished second with a 177, followed by Moorefield at 190, Frankfort 198, Petersburg 217 and Bishop Walsh at 240.

After taking a match at Valley View at Moorefield ahead of the Class A runner-up Yellow Jackets, the Golden Tornado put together another solid round on Tuesday.

"Really nice start to the season after two matches," Keyser head coach Josh Blowe said. "Seen a lot of improvement, especially from our four, five and six range last year. The hard work in the summer's definitely paying off."

The Golden Tornado were led by their No. 1 Drew Matlick, who tallied a 42 a day after shooting a 37 in Moorefield. While many would be happy with the performance, the perfectionist Matlick went straight to the driving range after his round.

Logan Jones and Owen Sweitzer set personal bests with rounds of 45 and 48, respectively. Dylan Wilson shot a 42, continuing his hot start following a personal-best 40 on Tuesday.

"Last year we had a lot of competition one through four, and there was kind of a gap between four and five," Blowe said of his team that finished fourth in Class AA. "But right now, our three through six are gonna be a ton of competition all season. Which is great, pushes everybody to get better."

Moorefield came in third with Ryan McGregor (42) and J.J. Carr (43) pacing the squad. The Yellow Jackets' No. 4 James Williams shot a 52 and No. 3 Will Barb ended at 53.

"It feels really good to get started again, new season," Moorefield head coach Wade Armentrout said. "I think our kids work really hard, they're dedicated to it. I like the way we've started so far, and they'll work on their game and get better as we go along."

Carr was part of the top pairing Wednesday, which featured Matlick, Bryson Lane from Frankfort and Evan Coffman — who shot a 41 — from Buckhannon-Upshur.

All four golfers seemed off their usual games, a byproduct of an early season that began just two days prior.

"You kind of get the jitters out there, it's a little bit different playing in the summer on your own than when you get into match play," Armentrout said. "It kind of changes the dynamics a little bit, the pace of play is different. You just have to get used to it."

Frankfort was just eight shots behind in fourth place, as Lane topped the team with a 44, the same score he shot at Valley View.

The Falcons' No. 5 Keegan Bennett showed progress for the second day in a row with the team's second-best score, a 48. Landon Moorehead shot a 50 and Ashton Moorehead and Chase McCoy tallied 52s.

Led by first-year head coach Wayne Rice, who played golf at Frostburg State and assisted former Falcons coach Bill Cessna 10 years ago, Frankfort appears to be in good hands.

"I coached girls tennis, and the biggest difference is they have 14 practices before they can compete," Rice said. "Golf's not that way. We started our season on Monday and our first match was Tuesday.

"I tease the other coaches at Frankfort, especially (football) coach (Kevin) Whiteman, that golf is the only true athletes. They're ready to go right now, they don't need 14 days."

Petersburg was led by Samantha Colaw (48), followed by Bryson Riggleman (52), John Minnich (57) and Kaiden Tenney (60).

Will Lapid finished with Bishop Walsh's high score at 50, Jacob Rossi garnered a 61 and Jake Nowaczyk a 63.

The Spartans are back on course after taking 2020 off because of COVID-19, and they're just pleased to get the opportunity to compete once again.

"We're young, we've got a lot of kids who are soccer players, so they split their time," BW head coach Tony Orndorff said. "We're happy to be out and we're happy to be able to play.

"We've been going out three times a week starting last week, just a couple hours at night out at the Country Club. We've just been doing what we can to figure things out."

Alex Rychwalski is a Sports Reporter at the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @arychwal.