AKRON – Buckeye Valley’s boys golf team returned to the Division II state tournament with three of last year’s top five leading the way.
With one of the two departures being individual champion Sam Reynolds, the Barons knew their roster well enough that no one competitor would completely shoulder the lost production from last year’s runner-up team.
Instead, the team concentrated on simply being consistent, and the Barons parlayed that into a 10th-place finish on Oct. 12 at Firestone Country Club.
Thanks to an eight-shot drop from the first day for senior and No. 1 player Jace Haunhorst, who followed up his opening-round 97 with a 17-over-par 89, and three other rounds between 84 and 87, Buckeye Valley shot a 687 and edged Lynchburg-Clay on the fifth-player
tiebreaker.
“More than last year, we were a lot more consistent even if we did not put up the numbers [the 2025 team] did,” Haunhorst said. “But since consistency was a big factor, that helped us a lot.”
Haunhorst parred five out of six holes on his back nine, one more than his total number of pars in the first round.
“It was a rough first round so I decided to just let that go,” Haunhorst said. “It’s my last tournament ever for high school so I just went out there and played golf. I had a really tough ball-striking day [Oct. 11] so I focused on that on the range. My short game wasn’t terrible. Getting to the green was the problem, but once I was there I was OK.”
Senior Harloh Hafner finished 38th (167) to lead Buckeye Valley, followed by junior Grayson Keller (tied for 44th, 169) and seniors Evan Bills (tied for 51st, 172) and Austin Rose (61st, 180).
Haunhorst tied for 66th.
“The greens were definitely faster, which helped a lot,” said Keller, referring to intermittent rain in the first round that gave way to mostly sunny conditions with a minimal breeze for the final day.
Warsaw River View won its first team title (600), five shots ahead of runner-up and defending champion Kettering Alter.
Alter edged Buckeye Valley by two shots at state a year ago.
Archbold senior Grady Short used a final-round 67 to win the individual title (141).
St. Clairsville was third (624), followed by Poland Seminary (627), St. Bernard Roger Bacon (642), Ottawa-Glandorf (643), Westfall (659), Gates Mills Gilmour Academy (661), Chardon Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin (661), Buckeye Valley, Lynchburg-Clay and Swanton (688).
Westfall senior Brendan Biegler followed up an opening-round 73 with an 80 to tie for 13th place.
Senior Colton Brungarth dropped 10 shots, from an 89 on Oct. 11 to 79, and tied sophomore teammate Colton Krafft for 41st.
Another sophomore, Brody Biegler, tied for 47th (170) as Westfall again improved its standing at state, going from 10th in 2024 to eighth last year to seventh this fall.
“My second shots were really good and my wedges saved me,” Brungarth said. “I didn’t hit very many fairways – I only hit three – but I had a lot of two-putts and only three-putted once. I only lost one ball and had a lot of good punchouts on my bad drives.
“I just tried to keep the ball straighter, swing smoother and not make hero shots.”
High school sports reporter Dave Purpura can be reached at dpurpura@dispatch.com and at @dp_dispatch on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Buckeye Valley, Westfall boys fall short at Division II state golf
