SANTA ROSA — Middletown High School’s young and talented golf team closed out a perfect Coastal Mountain Conference South season Tuesday afternoon with its eighth straight win, a 336-363 victory over St. Helena at the par-72 Valley of the Moon Golf Club in Santa Rosa.
Technology came in third with 391 and Kelseyville was fourth with 446.
Middletown (24-0) advances to the opening round of the North Coast Section playoffs Monday at Rooster Run Golf Club in Petaluma where play begins at 8 a.m. (shotgun start). Among the 144 golfers in the sectional field will be Middletown’s CMC South-champion team as well as South at-large golfers Micah Meraz-Ha, Ethan Peterson, Andrew Hileman and Willy Meyers, all of St. Helena, and Sebastian Maurice of Technology. Those five qualified by shooting the lowest 36-hole scores over the final two CMC South tournaments — Tuesday at Valley of the Moon and last week at Windsor.
Middletown’s Bodhi Moore fired the low round on Tuesday with an 8-over-par 80. Teammates Cooper Johnson (83), Blake Costlow (86) and Dom Williams (87) were next followed by St. Helena’s Meraz-Ha (88).
“My boys have come a long ways since our first tournament 2 1/2 months ago,” Middletown head coach Todd Williams said. “We continued to get better and better as the season went on. I’m super proud to be a part of this team with a great group of young men. This league championship and undefeated season is all their doing.”
Williams, Johnson, Moore and Costlow all received All-Conference first-team honors while Middletown’s Jackson Conley earned second-team honors. Johnson, based on his rounds of 83 Tuesday and 77 last week in Windsor, was named the CMC South individual champion, and Costlow was named the conference’s freshman of the year.
Dom Williams also received a pair of honors. He not only owned the South’s lowest scoring average this season, but he was named recipient of the inaugural John Berry Sportsmanship Award, which takes into account both golfing ability and personal conduct/character. The award is named after the longtime Kelseyville High School head golf coach.
“It’s a nice gesture,” said Berry, who is serving as the Knights’ assistant this season under head coach Shane Boehlert.
Williams was one of four candidates for the award along with Technology’s Maurice, St. Helena’s Meraz-Ha and Kelseyville’s Adam Astrup.
During Tuesday’s conference final, Sam O’Halloran led Technology with a 95 while Ethan Gambill led Kelseyville with a round of 105. Also for the Knights, Caleb Lopez had 112, Logan Farfan-Boyles 114 and Julian Armas 115.
While the weather for Tuesday’s match was a bit on the cold and windy side, Berry said the South golfers didn’t have to deal with much rain, which fell sporadically throughout the Redwood Empire.
“We had a few sprinkles, that’s about it,” said Berry, who will help with the running of the sectional tournament Monday at Rooster Run.
