The Fruitport boys golf team has been chasing NortPointe Christian and Calvin Christian in the conference standings all spring, and while the Trojans never quite caught up, they made it close and exciting in the end.
The Trojans finished in third place on Thursday in the O-K Silver Conference Tournament, the grand finale of the conference season, with 336 points. That left them only four points behind second-place Calvin Christian and 10 behind first-place NorthPointe Christian.
The tournament was played at The Falls of Barber Creek golf course.
“I am incredibly proud of how our guys played today,” said Fruitport head coach Nate Smith. “They put together a great round when it mattered most.
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“We had the opportunity to play a practice round at The Falls earlier so we had a good game plan of where we could attack and score and where we needed to play smart and let the course come to us.”
Two Fruitport golfers had great days on the course.
Sophomore Chase Marcus shot an 18-hole round of 79 to finish third in the individual standings and win a medal. Senior Eli Cuti shot an 83, finished seventh and also won a medal.
Marcus earned first-team All-Conference honors for the season while Cuti earned honorable mention All-Conference status.
“Chase and Eli both stepped up their game today,” Smith said. “Chase shot his best round of 18 today and moved from being an honorable mention All-Conference candidate to being first-team All-Conference. Eli played himself into the All-Conference honorable mention spot.
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“They knew going in they needed to play a focused round and that’s exactly what they did.”
Fruitport senior Tyler Cuti and junior Landon Lodholtz both shot an 87 and finished tied for 13th place.
Evan LaGuire and Ryder Nadeau shot a 91 and 96, respectively.
“We have been behind NorthPointe Christian and Calvin Christian all season,” Smith said. “We wanted to go at both of them today. Missing out on the second spot by four strokes is such a narrow margin. Both of those programs have so much depth and so much experience playing competitive golf, and it showed in the final stretch of the tournament.
“We are peaking at the right time with the regional tournament next week. I can’t wait to see what our guys do.”
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