Over the last month, the boys’ golf team has had playoff matches including Sectionals, Districts, and the Mid Penn Conference Championship. The individual and team state championships will take place from Oct. 16 to Oct. 18.
On Sept. 19, the State College boys golf team traveled to sectionals at Sinking Valley. They won easily, making up half of the players qualifying for the finals. The top player was State High’s Max Wager, with a score of 73. In second place was Luke McGraw, with a score of 77, and AJ Corson in third, with a score of 79. The other players from State College that moved on to the district championship were Brady Wager with a score of 83, and Sam Shaner with a score of 85. State College won, followed by Hollidaysburg, which means that Central Mountain, Altoona, and Mifflin County were all cut.
On Sept. 26, the team had their district finals at Scotch Valley Country Club in Hollidaysburg. State College won with Hollidaysburg as a very distant second. The team won with Max Wager in first place individually with a score of 73, McGraw in second place individually with a score of 76, and Corson in third place with an individual score of 79.
McGraw unfortunately lost a 2-man 2-hole playoff to Isaac Miller from Hollidaysburg. This caused him to not be able to play in the state championship and be one of the only four freshmen at states. Brady Wager and Shaner were on the leaderboard for this match as well.
One of the coaches, Jim Schaper said, “For a long time we thought we were struggling and then about halfway through the match we just kind of picked it up and dominated everybody else.”
On Sept. 28, they had the Mid-Penn Championships at the Dauphin Highlands Golf Course in Harrisburg. State College won the team competition with Max Wager in first place overall, with a score of 71. Chris Warner placed 4th with a score of 75, and McGraw placed 10th with a score of 77. These championships had all 7 Mid Penn golf teams competing, which were State College, Hershey, Central Dauphin, Cumberland Valley, Boiling Springs, Mechanicsburg and Northern York. State College placed first, followed by Hershey, and Central Dauphin took third. Some of the players did not play in the playoff matches, but Charlie Ladrido, a freshman on the team said that he kept up with the GolfGenius, to watch his teammates’ scores.
“I was a little nervous because I wanted to win, but I had confidence in my teammates,” Ladrido said.
Warner, a junior on the team, is a very skilled player, Ladrido and Schaper agreed. He is not allowed to play in PIAA playoff matches this season because of his transfer from Saint Joseph’s Catholic Academy.
“I don’t really love it, but I understand it. I also know that as a team, our kids have kind of picked up the slack of him not being in there,” said Schaper, “So when he’s played, we’ve been really dominant, and when we have not had him, we’ve still picked it up pretty good and played very well.”
The State College boys’ golf team is in the midst of a great season with only one loss and has perhaps their best chance in states since they won it all in 2021. The seniors AJ Corson, Manny Diaz, Maddox Lietzel, and Max Wager are all considered the leaders on the team by the coaches.
“Because [the seniors have] been doing this for four years now, they’ve kind of taken all the younger kids under their wing,” Schaper said.
The team has dominated their schedule so far this season and hope to carry the success over to the State Championship at the Penn State Golf Courses next week.
