PTHS golfers win district team title; Morton is individual champ

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Port Townsend High School junior Patrick Morton won the West Central District 1A boys' golf championship, and is one of four Redhawks players to qualify for the state tournament.

Chimacum High School senior Chris Bainbridge finished second at district, and is one of three Cowboy golfers to make the state 1A tourney May 24-25 at the Liberty Lake course near Spokane.

Port Townsend won the district team title May 17 at Gold Mountain Golf Course in Bremerton with 103 points followed by Chimacum at 74 and Cascade Christian with 63. The top 15 individual finishers qualified for state.

Morton won the individual district crown with an 18-hole score of 75, while Bainbridge carded 80. PT's Jacob Ralls tied for 5th overall with 85, Chimacum's James Porter was 9th at 88 and Marcus Buford was 11th at 89. PT's Austin Khile was 12th at 90 while Keegan Khile snared the 15th and final spot to state with a round of 93.

Townsend's Sebastian Thomas-Anderson was 16th at 95, and is the district's first alternate to state. Also placing in the top 27 finishers were Chimacum's Aidan Harnett, 22nd with 105, and PTs Jaime Peake, 27th with a round of 122.

This is Morton's third trip to state, and Austin Khile's second. For Chimacum, it is the third year at state for Bainbridge, and second year for Bufford and Porter. Last year, Porter and Bufford tied for 24th overall, which helped the Cowboys tie for 4th place in team scoring.

Gabriel Tonan, PTHS golf coach for 16 years and a state meet competitor while a PTHS student-athlete, said the state tourney is really no different than any other round of golf. He believes the Gold Mountain course at district was set up more difficult than will be the Liberty Lake course at state, yet so much depends on each individual's frame of mind.

"Golf is golf," Tonan said. "You need to keep things off your mind and focus. Not everybody hits shots where they want all the time and the players who hit consistently are the ones who get a score that won't take them out of the tournament."

Townsend's No. 1 player this season has been Austin Khile, while Sebastian Thomas-Anderson finished with the best overall average. On the district course, Morton "played solid all the way around. He hit the ball down the middle, he hit the ball on the green and he got up and down. He was playing each hole for what it was and not thinking about the scoring."

Tonan also noted that Keegan Khile shot a first round of 50, but recovered well on the back nine to shoot 43, and make the state cut. Ralls, meanwhile, had a steady round and would have placed higher than 5th if he had not faltered on his final three holes.

Thomas-Anderson was fine on the fairways, but had his season's worst day for putting and still came within one stroke of qualifying for state, Tonan noted.