The St. Mary’s golf team has developed a knack for cutting it close over the past few weeks, but it turned out to be a winning formula. After winning the Division 3 North sectionals last week by one stroke, the Spartans repeated on two ends at Monday afternoon’s Division 3 state championship. For the second week in a row, St. Mary’s (323) earned a one-stroke win, this time over Dover-Sherborn (324), to repeat as Division 3 state champion at Black Swan Country Club.
“Last week we had a talk after the round,” St. Mary’s coach Jay Fiste said. “One shot goes bad one way or another, you never know if you win or lose on a bad bounce. I was hoping they had that on their minds today and it seemed to work. They grinded it well.
“The course was tough,” Fiste added. “Owen (Maguire) ended up getting out of the sand on his last hole. Little did he know that would be the winning shot. Anything can happen. A bad bounce here, a bad bounce there. Winning by one shot is as slim a thread as possible. I’m proud of all the guys. They worked hard all year and they deserve what they got.”
Brothers Aiden and Christian Emmerich led the Spartans with the best individual performances of the afternoon. Christian shot a 72 and won the Division 3 individual championship for the second consecutive year. Aiden shot a 73 and earned runner-up honors.
“Christian this is his back-to-back state individual,” Fiste said. “His brother came in second today. As a team, we won it back-to-back and that validated what we did last year so we feel good about that.”
Rounding out the Spartans individual scores were Luke Smith (86), Owen Maguire (92), Peter Pagliuca (93) and Luke Sargent (96).
“All six guys today contributed immensely for the year,” Fiste said. “Christian, Aiden, Luke Smith has been a solid player all year long. Luke Sargent, Owen Maguire, Peter Pagliuca. That was our tournament team. Those six guys, they like each other, they get along great. Everyone knows their role. It’s kind of a weird sport, it’s all individual and gets added at the end. You concentrate on your own game and you’re hoping the rest of the team pulls their own.”
The success the Spartans have seen over the past two seasons has been a bit of a surprise for Fiste. When he looked at his roster prior to the start of the 2017 campaign, he felt confident that 2018 would be St. Mary’s year. As it turns out, the Spartans did Fiste one better by winning the state crown both seasons.
“When last year began I looked at our roster and in my mind 2018 was our year,” Fiste said. “We ended up stepping it up in last year’s final. We had guys that had career-type rounds. We won last year and in my mind that wasn’t supposed to happen until this year. The two Emmerich brothers gave us great play. We had solid players in the bottom that came through. Luke and Owen contributed.”
With the golf team’s victory, St. Mary’s athletics has won at least one state championship for 12 years in a row.
Also in Division 3, Swampscott finished ninth with a team score of 357. Top Big Blue scorers were Jake Goldman (85), Ryan Graciale (89), Max Pegnato (90), Aidan Graciale (93), Lou Spellios (93) and Tate Greenfield (103).
At the Division 1 state championship at Chicopee Country Club, the St. John’s Prep golf team finished tied for second with a team score of 301. Top Eagles performers were Drew Semons (74, tied seventh overall), Matt Remley, (74, tied seventh overall), Conor O’Holleran (75, 10th overall) and Robbie Forti (78).