PEARL — Depth and consistency have been valuable assets for Warren Central’s golf team this season, and on Monday they brought the Vikings a tournament championship.

Four of Warren Central’s five golfers shot 87 or lower for a team score of 344 and a 15-shot victory at the Pearl Invitational.

“That’s where we’ve been consistent. We’ve had second place three times by a few shots and we’ve done really well. We’ve got a lot of experience back from last year to this year. So we’re very proud of where we are,” Warren Central coach Matt Williams said. “We know who the top dogs are in the state and we feel very confident that we can be in the top five or six this year. We have some seniors that have played a lot of golf and some young guys that are capable of going low, so we’re excited with where we’re headed right now.”

It was Warren Central’s first tournament victory this season, although it was far from its best performance.

The team’s top scorers, Reed Buys and Taylor Lampkin, tied for fourth place by each shooting 85. Cameron Hoofman and Josh Hallberg both shot 87, and sophomore Hayden Jones rounded out the roster with a 103. The 344 team total — only the top four scores count — was about 15 shots off their best of the season.

No one else in the six-team field could match the Vikings across the board, however. Pearl’s Jordan Long took medalist honors with a 77, but none of his teammates broke 100.

Kosciusko had the second- and third-place individual finishers with Jacob Gibson (78) and Jett Crosby (82), but its other two golfers shot 102 and 103. The Whippets finished third in the team standings with a score of 365.

The low scorer for Wesson, which finished second in the team standings with a score of 359, was Braden Taylor with an 87.

That left Warren Central’s cluster of 85s and 87s standing tall with the trophy.
Brandon was fourth at 375, while Pearl (407), Cleveland Central (431) and Florence (451) rounded out the field.

“We can do better. We posted a 328 a couple of weeks ago at Clear Creek. Our goal was to consistently be in the 320s. Today was a good day. Any day we can walk away with a team win, we’ll take it. The course was a little difficult for our boys to get used to. They battled through it and came away with a solid score,” Williams said. “We put some guys in today that have not been in our top five and came away with a win.”