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Loudoun County wins Dulles golf tourney
The Loudoun County Raiders used consistent play and a balanced scoring sheet to emerge victorious at the Dulles District golf tournament Sept. 24 at Lowes Island Golf Club in Potomac Falls.
Brantley Kushner (76), Kevin Cook (78) and Andrew Brenneman (78) provided County's lowest scores on the par-72 course, adding to the rounds of 81 produced by Jon Youst and Dan Jackson.
"I was pretty confident that we had a good balanced lineup from top to bottom," Raider coach John Laycock said. "That's really helped."
The Raiders were three shots better than regular-season champion Briar Woods, who had Michael Birmingham (78), Adam Ochs (78), Jon Howard (79) and Robbie Mitchell (80) factor in their tally.
The Raiders and Falcons earned spots in the Region II tournament, scheduled for Oct. 7 in Charlottesville.
Broad Run's Kevin Yerks captured the individual title with his 71, five strokes better than runner-up Kushner.
The Spartan senior fought back from a four-putt on No. 4, knocking in four birdies in five holes during a back-nine stretch.
"The greens were very tough. A lot of people had some trouble with them," Yerks said. "But if you could get the speed down you're usually not too far away from the hole."
At-large regional spots went to Yerks, Freedom's Alex Choi (77), Tyler Blake (78) and Nick Lee (80), and Broad Run's Tyler Campos (80).
After each shot 81, Potomac Falls' Michael Tondi beat Heritage's John Conley in a two-hole playoff, securing the final at-large berth.
The median score for the 48 rounds played in the tournament was 87.
It will be the third consecutive trip to regionals for Briar Woods, whose coach Bob Vitti was absent from the Dulles tournament to attend to a family matter.
"I thought the course played really hard today," Falcons' interim coach Duane Colebank said. "You'd hit the greens and they wouldn't hold; it'd just keep rolling. It's still a beautiful course, but today was a hard day."
The prevailing sentiment among the players was the deceptive nature of the club's Island Course, which they reported as having excellent playing conditions, but with difficult nuances and fast greens.
Cook said that he wasn't comfortable with the course until the back nine, on which he shot 36.
"These are tough holes. There's a lot of water and it's easy to get in trouble," the sophomore said. "I just hit the fairway, hit the green, started rolling my putts. Right around the turn, I started putting well."
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