Four in the 40s

The top Patriot didn’t quite have the day he would have liked.

Some of the golfers lower in the lineup put up solid scores.

As a result, the Patriots looked pretty similar across the board and pulled out the victory.

The Jay County High School boys golf team had a combined effort as the top four scorers were no more than two strokes apart to beat the Blackford Bruins 173-209 on Thursday at Portland Golf Club.

“I thought we played pretty well,” said JCHS coach Jay Houck. “That’s right about where we’ve been scoring. It was windy again. A lot of our matches have had a lot of wind, so I think they navigated that well. But overall, pleased to come out with a win.”

Tucker Griffin earned match medalist honors by shooting a 42. He made par four times, including three of the final four holes, and added three bogeys.

Ryley Ridgway had the top round for the Bruins, shooting a 46. While his round was only four strokes off of Griffin, all three of the other Patriots that contributed to the final beat out Ridgway.

Just one stroke behind Griffin was Griffin Byrum. Jay County’s No. 3 golfer flipped the amount of pars and bogeys that Griffin had, giving Byrum three pars and four bogeys, en route to a 43.

Both Cody DeHoff and Isaac Homan rounded out the final score by shooting rounds of 44 for JCHS (5-2).

DeHoff had a consistent round as eight of the nine holes were parred or bogeyed. The only blemish on his scorecard came on the 176-yard, par-3 second hole. While DeHoff finished with a double-par after dumping his tee shot in the water, it didn’t hurt his score in comparison to the competition. (Of the 10 golfers, only Homan and Ridgway parred the hole, while six had double-par and Griffin and Juan Velasquez finished with double-bogeys.)

Homan had a slower start to the day, recording double-bogeys on the first two holes he played, No. 9 and 1, before parring the second. He struggled again on the third and fourth with double-bogeys before figuring things out over the final four holes.

It started on the 414-yard, par-4 fifth hole. His first shot hugged the left side, but stayed in play about 200 yards away from the green. His second shot, slowed by the wind, moved him to within 75 yards of the green. His third shot was still just short of the green and about 40 feet away from the flag.

His fourth shot put him on the green, but his ball pulled up nine feet short. A straight putt stayed on course for bogey.

He then had the highlight of the day as he birdied the 471-yard, par-4 sixth hole. He then finished the round with a pair of pars.

“On hole six, my third shot from 100 yards out, I put (the ball) within 8 inches of the hole,” Homan said. “I made that putt for birdie. The hole 8, I hit (my drive) up to the green, but I chipped over it. But then I chipped in and it was a farther chip than my first one."

Dawson Goldsworthy shot a 51, tying Blackford’s No. 2 golfer, Zane Heiser, but it didn’t affect the final outcome.

Similarly to the South Adams Invite on April 26, Jay County had to deal with some significant wind during the match, often forcing players to go up a club. While the conditions are preventing the Patriots from hitting their ceiling at times, Houck hopes that it will help them navigate through tough conditions later in the season.

“It’s always good to have a number of matches with wind so you’re used to dealing with it, rather than have a bunch of calm days and then later on get a windy match and not know how to handle it” Houck said. “I think these are good to give them experience and help them gage how to adjust for the wind in future matches.”