Locals fail to advance in Region 4C golf

PURCELLVILLE — No area golfer was able to advance to the Class 4 state tournament at Thursday’s Region 4C tournament at Loudoun Golf & Country Club.

Only the region champion and the top five individuals from Thursday’s competition advance to the state tournament, which will take place Oct. 9 and 10 at the Glenrochie Country Club in Abingdon.

James Wood took sixth out of six teams with a four-player score of 360. Woodgrove took first (323), and the Wolverines were followed by Loudoun Valley (324), Riverside (326), Fauquier (335) and Kettle Run (342).

Loudoun County’s Matthew Monastero defeated Woodgrove’s Alex Price in a playoff to win the individual championship. Each shot a 2-over-par 74 in regulation play.

Out of the 11 competing local golfers, Mounts and Burton were the only two who broke 91.

“The course conditions were so tough,” said James Wood coach David Oates in a phone interview. “The course conditions were very windy. It’s a hard golf course, and they set it up really tough. They didn’t really have any easy pins.”

Oates was hoping that Mounts would be able to qualify individually. If not for the par-4 1st and the par-3 18th, he might have. Oates said Mounts had a triple bogey on each of those holes.

“He got off to a bad start, but then he played great golf until the last hole,” Oates said. “He battled very, very hard today, and it almost paid off. I’m very happy for him.”

Mounts and Logan Harper were the only two seniors in Oates’ lineup on Thursday, so he hopes the experience pays off.

“We felt fortunate and worked hard to get here as a team,” Oates said. “For the four [underclassmen], their focus was, ‘This is an experience for moving forward.’ It will start to get them used to playing at a higher level of golf where it’s just a little more stressful and a little more difficult.”

The other scores from local golfers on Thursday were: Jacob Karen, James Wood (91), Ryan Judy, Sherando (91), Nick Varcadipane, Millbrook (92), Jackson Lynch, James Wood (94), Drew Johnson, James Wood (94), Brandon Nice, Sherando (94), Logan Harper, James Wood (100), Evan Simmons, Sherando (100) and Carson Baker, James Wood (103). Sherando’s Caleb Dotson qualified for the region tournament but did not participate.