Though the Chittenango boys golf team struggled for match wins throughout the 2017 season, it gained a particular victory at the end.
It came from seeing Tyrus Kelly doing well enough at Tuesday’s Section III Class B/C/D fall tournament at Marcellus Golf Club to earn a place in next May’s sectional state qualifier at Seven Oaks in Hamilton.
Kelly and Cole Dunkley were the Bears’ lone representatives in the tournament, played on a sun-drenched MGC course where breezes and roller-coaster greens made scoring conditions quite difficult.
With one birdie on his round, Kelly finished with an 85, but that put him in a tie for seventh place with Westhill’s Tim Alcaro and CBA’s David Gross . And it was the top 11 finishers, plus ties, that advanced as Dunkley could only manage a 98.
Westhill’s Josh Marshall won with a five-over-par 77, two shots ahead of teammate Sean Dadey. Not only did the Warriors win the team title, it sent all six of its top golfers – Marshall, Dadey, Alcaro, Anthony Maglisco, Nick Sauro and David Bleskoski – to the state qualifier.
That group joins Kelly, Gross, Mike Santaro (CBA), Wyatt Brown (Tully), R.J. Shaver (LaFayette), Ron Marsden (Mexico) and Ty Jones (Skaneateles) as golfer who made it to May and earned a chance to play in the June state tournament at Cornell University’s course in Ithaca.
