Paul Boggs: Valley, Burg win SOC boys golf
Sep. 26—Previous
Pictured are members of the Valley High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division I) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Submitted photo
Pictured are members of the Wheelersburg High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division II) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Courtesy of Ruth Boll
Pictured are members of the Valley High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division I) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Submitted photo
Pictured are members of the Wheelersburg High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division II) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Courtesy of Ruth Boll
Pictured are members of the Valley High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division I) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Submitted photo
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Pictured are members of the Wheelersburg High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division II) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Courtesy of Ruth Boll
McDERMOTT — Spearheaded by a pair of returning state qualifiers, the Wheelersburg Pirates and Valley Indians are your Southern Ohio Conference boys golf champions for 2023.
For Wheelersburg, it marks back-to-back SOC II team championships — and back-to-back years in which a Pirate was the division's Player of the Year.
For Valley, junior Cameron Phillips is now the three-time SOC I POY —as Phillips turned the trick this season with an SOC 18-hole tournament record low score.
The championship meet took place on Wednesday at its traditional home of The Elks Country Club, where the 18-hole par is 72 —and Phillips' career low is 61.
He fired an eight-under-par 64, winning the SOC I individual title going away —and improving eight strokes from last season's championship.
Per his head coach and father Tyson Phillips, the SOC I Coach of the Year to give the Indians the top awards sweep, Cameron carded a 62 this summer at The Elks —three times to be exact.
Phillips is already a two-time Division III all-Ohioan —having placed in the top-four in fact (third in 2021 and fourth in 2022) in both of his first two years at the state golf tournament.
While Phillips coasted to medalist in the SOC I, Wheelersburg senior Brady Gill garnered the Player of the Year honor in the SOC II.
Gill was one of three Pirate players on the all-SOC II team, as he shot five-over-par 77 —four strokes better than his SOC II medalist runner-up effort of last season.
Gill, in Division II, qualified for the state golf tournament as a junior —and took 27th.
Wheelersburg, which shot 335 in claiming the 2022 championship, was eight shots (327) better with its team tally this time.
Paul Boll of Wheelersburg was the SOC II Coach of the Year.
All six SOC II teams that could record a team score did, as the Pirates' 327 was 25 strokes better than runner-up Waverly (352).
Minford was third at 368, West was fourth with 375, Northwest was next at 391, and Oak Hill was sixth at 417.
Besides Gill, the Pirates' two other all-league selections were Carter Hancock with an 80 and Eli Hall with an 84.
Hall, in fact, had an 80 at least year's meet —and was last season's SOC II Player of the Year.
The other three SOC II all-leaguers were Waverly's Ben Nichols with an 80, Northwest's Brandon Eichenlaub with an 82, and Minford's Landon Boston with an 83.
Like Gill and Hall, Nichols is a repeat all-SOC honoree.
Joining Phillips on the all-SOC I unit was Valley teammate Tate Queen, who was the sixth and final all-league selection with an 89.
As a team, the Indians had not recorded a team score in Phillips' first two years —as the lowest four individual scores for any particular school count toward the team total.
Pictured are members of the Valley High School boys golf team which captured the championship of the Southern Ohio Conference (Division I) meet, which took place on Wednesday at The Elks Country Club.
Submitted photo
Valley's team total was a 352 —outdistancing Eastern (372) by 20 strokes, Western (389) by 37, and South Webster (392) by 40.
Ironton St. Joseph was next with a 408, and new team Notre Dame turned in a 417.
Owen Mault of South Webster and Eli Ford from St. Joseph both shot 77s to repeat as all-league —as Mault made all-league with a 75 a year ago, and Ford with a 79.
Eastern's Cayden Haislop with an 80 and Logan Slusher with an 87 also made all-SOC I, as Haislop repeated to the all-league list —and was 10 strokes better this season.
All of the SOC gents were back in action on Tuesday and Wednesday —with Ohio High School Athletic Association sectional tournament play.
The Division II teams took part on Tuesday at The Elks, while Wednesday was the stage for the Division III clubs —at Chillicothe's Jaycees for Valley and at Big Beaver Creek Golf Club for everyone else.
Reach Paul Boggs at (740) 353-3101 ext. 1926, by email at pboggs@aimmediamidwest.com, or on X @paulboggssports © 2023 Portsmouth Daily Times, all rights reserved
