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North County Golfers Finish Strong At Regional

East Lake Qualifies For State Tournament

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By Eric Horchy | The Suncoast News

Published: October 22, 2007

Trinity, Fla. - Trinity, Fla. - It took extra playoff holes against rival Palm Harbor University, but the East Lake High boys golf team clinched the second of two available playoff births to the FHSAA State Finals that begin next Tuesday.

Playing Monday morning at the challenging Fox Hollow Golf Club, East Lake and PHUHS tied with combined scores of 319 through the first 18 holes.

Rain from the night before made for some inconsistent conditions throughout the Trinity-area course – slowing some greens more than others and making saves from the sand even more difficult than usual.

Seniors Tommy Peterson and Nick Buccina and sophomore Terry O'Reilly led the way for the Eagles, penciling in scores of 77, 79 and 79, respectively, before leading the playoff charge for second place.

Tampa's Plant High School came away with the overall team victory, putting a 315 on the board.

North Pinellas was represented well by three teams - East Lake, PHUHS and Dunedin High. The schools finished second, third and fourth in that order.

Dunedin came into Monday's round a perfect 15-0 on the year and as Class 2A District 12 champs. They beat both East Lake and PHUHS that day, but missed the shot at qualifying Monday by eight strokes.

Justin Foster and Westin Jensen finished as low scorers for the young Dunedin team, both posting a 79.

Highly touted PHUHS junior Zack Sobel, coming off his tournament low 74 during the district tournament, recorded an 80. Teammate Matt Cote led the Hurricanes with a 76.

Overall, that score was only one stroke above the tournament best. Riverview's Ian McConnell and Plant's George Letson played a playoff of their own to see who would officially be crowned region champ. Since the top two individuals qualify for the state championship, the playoff held no 'win or go home' implications - both were locked in already.

Overall there were nine schools represented with teams of five golfers each. The best four rounds per team are used to calculate the school's posted score.

There were also nine individual golfers who qualified to play in the regional tournament, although without their teammates.

Among those individuals were area golfers Alec Konstantin of Tarpon Springs, J.W. Mitchell's Kenny Cavender and Countryside's Matt Arace. Konstantin shot a 78, Cavender posted an 82 and Arace finished with an 84.

The Class 2A state championship is a two-day, 36-hole event to be held October 30 and 31 at The Golf Club at Bridgewater in Lakeland.

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