A season’s worth of work for area boys and girls high school golf teams would culminate in tournament week, where Section III honors were at stake, as well as state tournament berths.
And at least one local player would get there – one who knew quite well about state tournaments.
Shannon Bunce, long a standout on the Westhill girls golf team, was part of the girls basketball Warriors that advanced all the way to the state Class B final at Troy’s Hudson Valley Community College in March.
Now Bunce will get a second shot for a state championship, thanks to her tie for eighth place during Tuesday’s sectional tournament at Kanon Valley in Oneida.
Shooting a 49 on the front nine, Bunce improved to a 43 on the back nine and finished with a 92, the same as Cicero-North Syracuse’s Nessa McKie.
Nine golfers would advance to the state tournament this weekend at Long Island’s Bethpage State Park. Bunce and McKie were the last two qualifiers on the main team.
Auburn’s Lindsay May, a two-time state individual champion, won here, too, with a 77, seven shots ahead of Fayetteville-Manlius’ Madison Kingsley. May and Kingsley join Bunce and McKie on the state team along with F-M’s Maggie Bonomo, plus Lena Jones (Jamesville-DeWitt), Natalya Avotins (Liverpool), Bella Facciolo (Utica Proctor) and Olivia Evans (Vernon-Verona-Sherrill).
In the battle for sectional Division II team honors, Westhill could not repeat its title from 2015, settling for fifth place at 443, trailing Marcellus, who was fourth with 440. Led by Evans, VVS won the team title with 415.
Onondaga High School League tournament individual champion Mary Colella shot 95 for Marcellus, just three shots out of a state berth. Hannah Abbott had a 105, with Erin Haas and Elise LaBombard both shooting 120.
For its part, Westhill had Gabby LoCourto shoot a 99, well ahead of Angela Vigliotti (116) and Lydia Stevenson (136), while the lone West Genesee golfer in the field, Miki Riley, matched Abbott’s total of 105.
A day earlier, in the boys sectional West Area Qualifier at the Pompey Club, Marcellus, the regular-season champions in the OHSL Liberty division, had three golfers post top-10 finishes.
Carter Austin, with a 79, tied for fourth place, while Jay Colella got an 80 to finish alone in sixth place. Frank Szczech, with an 82, tied Fabius-Pompey’s Adrian Villardi for 10th place.
Despite these efforts, the Mustangs finished third in the Large School division, with a score of 427. Cazenovia, with 423, snared runner-up honors, and Skaneateles beat everyone with a 414.
Westhill, who was fourth on the team side with 437, had Sean Dadey contend for top individual honors, His score of 78 put Dadey in third place as Cazenovia’s Cody Thorp won with a 73 and Manlius-Pebble Hill’s Johnny Gruninger was second with a 76.
Though Solvay didn’t contend on the team side, Jon Smolen gave the Bearcats something to cheer about, shooting an 81 to tie McGraw’s Brad Fuller and Cazenovia’s Trevor Nourse for seventh place,
Smolen would join Dadey, Austin, Colella and Szczech as they reached the Section III State Qualifier, which began Thursday at Seven Oaks in Hamilton. Joining them were all the individuals from West Genesee that qualified in the fall, when the Wildcats won the sectional Class AA championship by one shot over Auburn.
Sean Stanistreet, Dylan Plis, Joe Morgan, Ethan Smith and Dean Matthews will represent WG, as the top nine individuals in that event advanced to this weekend’s state tournament at the Cornell University course in Ithaca.
