High School Golf: The Mt. Ararat Eagles soar to State Class A Championship

VASSALBORO – The Mt. Ararat High School golf team had a theme all season, “we’re not done yet.”

A season full of accomplishments, a perfect 10-0 regular season, a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Championship, top score in the Class A qualifier and the Class A North Sportsmanship Award, but as the KVAC South Coach of the Year Gerry Caron said, “they were not done.”

The Eagles fired a 312 to take the top spot in Class A to capture the state championship on the Tomahawk Course at Natanis Golf Course on Saturday. It’s the first-ever state championship for a Mt. Ararat golf team.

Scarborough placed second with a 317 and Thornton Academy and Camden Hills each followed with 331.

“This victory started four years ago,” Caron said, coaching his fourth season with the Eagles. “These kids have been with me since I started here. They’ve been working extremely hard. Practice to them is just playing golf, it’s something they love to do.

“Our theme all year was ‘we’re not done yet.’ We won the league, we got together and said, ‘we weren’t done yet.’ We went to Rockland (KVAC’s), we weren’t done yet. We went to qualify…had the lowest score, and we were talking about not being done yet. And then today, it was a big part of what we wanted to do for the team aspect.”

Caleb Manuel shot a 71 on the par-72 course, followed by Will Kavanaugh’s 75, Cade Charron’s 79 and Ben Hickson’s 87 for the Eagles top four total. Ty Henke shot a 95.

“We figured we needed three guys in the 70’s,” Caron noted. “Willy normally would be in the higher 70’s, shot a 75 and that really helped us today.”

In fact, it was Kavanaugh’s personal best on the course.

“A 78 is the best I’ve shot here,” the senior said. “I couldn’t have been more focused today. I came into this not too confident that I would shoot this well. I have not been

playing as well as I could the last couple of weeks.

“I started putting well and was hitting good drives today. I just kept rolling in putts that I haven’t done in awhile.”

“Willy has been in this program for a long time,” Caron said. “The last two years, even this past year, he has come into his own. He spends a lot of time on his game. He brings such a positive vibe to the team, it was a great scene for him to play well today.”

Manuel’s 71 was good for a three-way tie for the second-best score of the day, along with Camden Hills’ Cole Anderson and Scarborough’s Anthony Burnham. Thornton Academy’s Manuel Barbachano shot a 70 for the top score of the day.

“He’s an outstanding golfer, he works very hard it,” Caron said of Manuel. “You know what he’s going to do all day long, not make those kind of mistakes. A bad day for him is even-par. Everyone feeds off him.”

It wasn’t all pars and birdies for Manuel.

“I three-putt on hole eight which was a struggle and we had to wait on two groups at nine so that threw me off a little bit,” said the junior. “But I threw in a three-footer for birdie and I coasted from there.”

Charron’s 75 was one of 10 golfers in Class A who finished in the 70’s.

“You’re always going to have Caleb Manuel and Cade in the picture, but when you start throwing Willy and Ben in, who finished strong (birdied the ninth hole), we got things going.”

Along with Burnham, Ethan Mason (79), Peter Malia (83) and Aiden Griffiths (84) rounded out Scarborough’s 317.

Following Anderson’s 1-under score, Parker Hilchey (79), Jonathan (86) and Nate Johnson (95) summed up Camden Hills’ 331.

Behind Barbachano’s 70, Armond Ouellette (75), Tyler Snell (91) and Jack Burton (95) scored for Thornton Academy.

The win is also bitter sweet for Mt. Ararat, who finished tied with the best score in 2016, but lost the tie-breaker to Gorham, settling for runner-up.

“A couple of years ago we had one slip away from us and we didn’t forget that. We worked extremely hard to get to this point,” Caron said. “We have a lot of support, a lot of fans that come to matches and parents that help us out. It was a great team effort, they came here with a purpose.”

Both Manuel and Kavanaugh have been eyeing this day for some time.

“It’s kind of what we had in mind for the last three years,” Manuel said. “Three rounds in the 70’s is hard to beat.”

“After tying and losing two years ago, the whole team did not want to do that again,” Kavanaugh said. “The three of us have been together for a few years now. We worked really hard this summer and we knew we wanted it so bad.”

Now, the Mt. Ararat golfers will turn their focus to the individuals next weekend, also at Natanis Golf Course. All five of the Eagles qualified golfers for the tournament.

And according to Kavanaugh, the team camaraderie will carry on.

“We are all confident in each other and just this week we talked about having each other’s back if one of us didn’t play well. We’ll do the same next week.

As for Manuel, it’s another tournament for the talented junior.

“I am playing a lot of tournaments competitively so I’m fairly used to it,” Manuel said.