UXBRIDGE – When Seekonk junior Aidan Connell hit his second shot on his fourth hole at Blissful Meadows Golf Club in Uxbridge, he wasn’t initially happy with the contact.
His shot didn’t get a beautiful arc, but it did get him on the green, where he would sink a 20-foot putt for an eagle.
“It was a pretty sick hole,” Connell said. “It was an unlikely eagle, but I will take it.”
He rode the momentum of this to a 2-over 74 and won the Division 3 golf individual state championship.
“It was a really good feeling just to make it here,” Connell said. “Representing our school and our town is really important to me. To be able to come here and win really means a lot to me.”
Connell hit one birdie, five bogeys and 11 pars in addition to the eagle to reach his score. Hopedale’s Colin Haynes finished second with a 76 (4 over) while Manchester-Essex’s Gray West tied for third with a 77 with Old Rochester’s Luke Pierre and Jack Czerkowicz.
While Pierre and Czerkowicz weren’t able to claim the individual championships, their combined effort helped the Bulldogs top the leaderboard in the team competition. Old Rochester finished with a cumulative score of 323 (+35) and head coach Chris Cabe said the team remained “laser-focused” throughout and that paid off on Monday afternoon.
“I don’t have to worry about these kids because they are out there and ready to play and they get themselves prepared mentally,” Cabe said. “They are great golfers out on the course, they know how to put themselves in a good position to score and bad shots roll right off their backs.”
Cabe said the Bulldogs actually took two trips out to Uxbridge for practice rounds due to the original tournament being scheduled for Oct. 20 but getting delayed due to weather. Pierre said he felt seeing the course twice really helped him for the championship round.
“I didn’t break 85 in my practice rounds,” Pierre said. “It was great that we played it twice and when we came out here today, we delivered.”
Czerkowicz said that the key to success was limiting risk and hitting one shot to set up the next one.
“You have got to place the ball,” Czerkowicz said. “If you don’t put yourself in a good spot, it’s hard to make good scores. All of us played pretty consistently, which helped.”
The two additional counting members for Old Rochester were Brady Mills and John Bongiorno, who scored an 83 (+11) and 86 (+14), respectively. Ayer-Shirley finished second with a 331 (+43) while St. John Paul finished third with a 334 (+46).
Old Rochester had finished in the top five in each of the previous two seasons and Czerkowicz said Monday’s result was a culmination of that experience.
“We’ve been here for a couple of years so far, and we’ve been short every year by two or three strokes,” Czerkowicz said. “We felt pretty comfortable being here.”
