After an undefeated regular season and Section III Division I title, the Fayetteville-Manlius girls golf team traveled to Long Island’s Bethpage State Park to compete in last weekend’s New York State Public High School Athletic Association tournament.
For the first time, NYSPHSAA conducted a team tournament to go with the individual competition. And though the Hornets contended, it was Carmel (Section I) taking the team title by posting a total of 681.
Meanwhile, four F-M individuals – Maggie Bonomo, Bailey Wallace, Grace Perry and Paige Freyer – took part in the individual state tournament.
Wallace fared the best of them, with birdies on the 8th and 13th holes as part of an opening-round 83. Then, in the final round, Wallace posted an 85, making her second straight birdie on 8 as the highlight of her round, to tie for 22nd place overall with 168 overall.
Bonomo, competing once again in the state tournament, birdied holes 4 and 9 in her first round, yet still finished with an 85. A final-round 88 followed where Bonomo made a two on the par-three 4th hole on her way to finishing alone in 35th place with 173.
As for Perry, she improved 10 shots from her first-round 94 as she got an 84, sparked by a birdie on 16 for a 36-hole total of 178. Perry tied for 40th place as Freyer had rounds of 93 and 98 to finish at 191.
Medina’s Melody Green (Section VI), with rounds of 68 and 70, won the state tournament by two strokes over Bailey Shoemaker.
Auburn’s three-time state champion, Lindsay May settled for sixth place at 150 as Section III’s team finished third behind Section I and Section VI.
Liverpool’s Natalya Avotins tied for 13th place at 156 and her sister, Mya Avotins, was 32nd at 176. Vernon-Verona-Sherrill’s Olivia Evans had a 179 and Camden’s Danielle Caringi finished at 193.
That same day, the boys golf NYSPHSAA golf tournament got underway at Cornell University’s Robert Trent Jones course in Ithaca, where F-M’s Kyle Gilroy and Manlius-Pebble Hill freshman Johnny Gruninger had high expectations.
But in the first round, both of them struggled. Gruninger, who was second in the sectional state qualifier at Seven Oaks, only shot an 82 in the opening round, going nine over in his first eight holes before settling down with a pair of birdies.
Gilroy was one shot worse than Gruninger, with an 83 that included just one birdie, on the 5th hole. That left Gruninger and Gilroy needing strong final rounds to get into contention for top 20 and All-State honors.
Neither would get them as Gruninger finished with an 81 for a two-day total of 163 and Gilroy had an 87 to finish at 170.
Marcellus’ Shawn Colella had the best Section III finish, a tie for 23rd at 156, one shot ahead of New Hartford’s Jack Angelucci, who posted 157.
Angelucci’s New Hartford teammate, Mike Mandel, had a 159, ahead of West Genesee’s Nick Bove (161), Utica-Notre Dame’s Joe Miga (162), Marcellus’ Carter Austin (171) and Whitesboro’s Jake Domagal (175).
With a four-under-par 67, Adam Xiao (Section VIII, Manhasset) roared from the pack to finish at 143, one over par, and prevail by two strokes over Croton’s Matt Ferrari for the state individual title. Section V won the team title by seven strokes over Section I.
