Chaminade sweats out one-stroke win for second Class 5 team title in three years

Wilson, the Chaminade golf coach, and Guerra, a Red Devils senior, were among a red and white contingent nervously waiting for the last two groups to come in at the final round of the Missouri Class 5 boys golf tournament Tuesday at Silo Ridge Golf and Country Club.

“I went upstairs and hid, but then my family was watching it all,” Wilson said. “One in Iowa, one in Tennessee and one in St. Louis, and they kept texting me. I was like, 'Leave me alone. I don't want to know.' ”

After they completed their day, the Red Devils held a precarious one-stroke edge over Rockhurst with the Hawklets still having their top player out on the course.

“I just went to the bathroom to get away from everything,” Guerra said before the results were in. “You're kind of keeping me distracted now, which is nice.”

When Jack Cobb missed a putt on the 18th green, Chaminade was assured of a one-shot victory to claim its second Class 5 team title in the last three seasons.

“When someone misses a putt, you're not really supposed to celebrate, so I just ran away,” Guerra said after the final scores came in. “I just started going crazy and I see everyone come follow me after, so it was pretty special.”

The Red Devils' final tally was 296-298-594, while the Hawklets came in at 297-298-595. Helias was a close third at 298-303-601.

Chaminade also led Rockhurst by one stroke after the opening round Monday and held a two-shot lead over Helias. That lead came despite a bit of adversity in which the Red Devils lost six strokes on a waterlogged 18th Hole after a nearly four-hour weather delay.

The Red Devils' edge over the Hawklets is even more impressive when you factor in Rockhurst was the only Class 5 school to qualify five golfers, giving them some margin for error by dropping a score.

“If you'd ask me two days ago, I thought for sure we'd be battling for second place, especially because of Rockhurst's district scores,” Wilson said. “We've shot well at different times, but it had never all come together for us. To have them do that for two days was awesome.”

Junior Bubba Chapman led the way for the state champs with a sizzling two-day, 2-under-par total of 72-70-142.

“A couple Rockhurst guys came up to me and congratulated us. Just pure class from them,” Chapman said. “It means so much that I got here with the boys. These guys are just awesome and the Chaminade community is behind us. And we've got Chaminade social media guys out here running the Instagram.”

Guerra also had an all-state finish (top 15) by posting a two-day score of 76-71 to finish at 3-over 147.

“It's a really nice way to end the high school career,” he said. “That first year winning it felt really special. Last year, we struggled as a team, but I still had a good performance getting third individually. This year, to have that unfortunate sequence of events yesterday and then to come out today and do what we did is something special.”

Junior Charlie Kramer carded a two-day score of 73-78-151 to just miss the all-state cut, but any disappointment he may have had by that was washed away by the team success.

“It means a lot for me right now. Hopefully, we can be back here next year and repeat the same thing,” Kramer said. “We practiced all together this week leading up and we had some setbacks (Guerra has a sprained ankle and senior Clayton Becher was sick much of the week), but we all managed to make it through in good shape.”

Like Chapman and Guerra, Becher was on the Red Devils' state winning team two years ago and he was back for another team gold medal this year with a 75-79-154 showing.

“Not many people can say they are a two-time state champion,” Becher said. “Just to see that all four of your guys are pretty dialed in for the first day and know they can compete the second day is good.”

CBC captured the other team trophy finish (top four) in Class 5 with a two-day total of 311-304-615 to come in fourth. The Cadets also brought home hardware last season with a third-place showing.

“We came down here with the goal to get on the podium again. Looking at the top four, they're all good teams, all capable, so I'm satisfied,” CBC coach Mike McCormack said. “We had a good talk last night about what we needed to do today, talking about the holes individually. They took good notes and came out here to play today.”

Marquette was just edged out for a trophy spot by CBC with a fifth-place finish of 313-306-619.

“I'm really proud of our kids,” Mustangs coach Eric Schweain said. “We have twins (Connor and Ryan Hopwood) that are seniors and we will miss them, but we had a couple underclassmen and some others that were really good this year, so we're excited about where we are now and what's coming in next year. We'd love to get back as a team, but it's hard to do.”

The other area team at the Class 5 tourney, De Smet, finished 322-326-648 for an eighth-place showing in the nine-team field.