REPORTER FILE PHOTO
Members of the Shelter Island High School golf team practicing earlier this week. From left, Noah Topliff, Coach Bob DeStefano, Owen Gibbs, Mason Marcello, Elijah Davidson, Henry Binder and Nick Young.
It’s been difficult to get the high school golf season going because of the changeable weather. Either we were in extreme heat alerts or it was raining. But we’ve still managed to get in five matches.
Our first match was September 13 at home against Eastport on the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club course. Shelter Island started out strong with a 6-3 victory. Our one-two punch of Nick Young and Lucas Quigley Dunning consistently gave us leads. Young shot a 32 and Quigley Dunning a 40 to give us a comfortable 10-shot lead.
Our number 3 golfer, Owen Gibbs, number 4 Nico Seddio and number 5 Henry Binder all shot scores in the 40s to complete the victory. Baz Quigley-Dunning played his first varsity match as number 6 and lost by one shot.
For our next match against Hampton Bays, we were missing both our 5 and 6 players, Henry Binder and Mason Marcello, due to illness. This match was played at the Woods Course in Riverhead. Our one-two punch broke out even with their Hampton Bays’ counterparts. Lucas was unable to swing with a bad back but he played. We lost 8 to 1.
Our third match was against Southold/Greenport at Island’s End Golf Club. With our numbers 1 and 2 players healthy, Young and Quigley-Dunning gave us an unbelievable lead of 25 shots over their 1 and 2 players. With Owen Gibbs and Mason Marcello out sick, we still managed a solid victory of 7-2. Nico and Henry both won their matches, but Baz Quigley-Dunning and Elijah Davidson had rough days.
On September 26 we ran into a red-hot Mattituck team at North Fork Country Club who had five scores under 40 and were soundly defeated 9 to 0 by scores of 36, 37, 39, 40, 40. Congratulations go to the first place and undefeated Mattituck team on a wonderful performance with rounds that we have never matched.
The next day was an at-home match when we hosted Southold/Greenport and won with a score of 7-2. Again, our one-two punch of Nick and Lucas came in first, shooting 32 and 38 to give us a mindboggling lead of 26 shots. The rest of the team also did their jobs, with Nico and Henry winning their matches and Ethan Renault firing one of his best rounds under pressure to add 4 more strokes and winning by 30 shots.
The team goes into this week with a 3 and 2 record, holding third place in the league behind Mattituck and Riverhead. Keep it going, guys!
