WINFIELD – Patrick Newell wasn’t in full-blown panic mode, but his cool demeanor was being tested.
 
After his Sacred Heart golf team had taken a 13-shot lead into Wednesday’s second round of the Class 2A state championships at Quail Ridge Golf Course, that margin had reached rather uncomfortable territory. Syracuse, which a year ago forced the Knights to come from behind on the second day for their 10th straight state championship, was making a hard charge and had cut the Knights’ lead to a measly two shots.
 
“All I was thinking was, ‘We’re losing this, and it’s not happening,’” Newell said of the prospects of the Knights extending their state title streak. “Our guys were not playing good and from I could watch, the Syracuse kids were playing lights out. And I thought, ‘Good for them, it’s their time to win.’”
 
Then things kind of went dark. Literally. The live scoring update on Kansas Golf Scores went down and just like that, no one knew exactly where things stood for a few holes. 
 
And what transpired during that brief outage suddenly changed everything. When the scoring began working again, Sacred Heart’s lead was back up to an eight-point advantage. The Knights were able to mostly maintain the margin over the final few holes and did indeed capture their 11th straight Class 2A state title.
 
Sacred Heart finished with a two-day total of 643 to edge Syracuse by six shots for the championship. 
 
“I’m just so relieved,” Newell said. “Each year, the amount of pressure we have. In the back of your mind and in the players’ minds, you try not to think it, but you don’t want to be the team that end it. It’s just there and there’s nothing you can do. I’m just so glad this one is over because on the back nine, it didn’t look good for us.”
 

It didn’t look good for the Knights a year ago either when Syracuse posted a team score of 301 on the first day of the state tournament to lead by 10 shots. But the Knights responded to that challenge with a stellar second-day total of 300 and won by 17 shots when Syracuse slipped to a 327 on Day 2.
 
This year, it was a bit of a role reversal. Sacred Heart enjoyed its best team round of the season in Tuesday’s opening round, posting a 310 that gave the Knights a 13-stroke lead on Hutchinson Trinity and 14-stroke advantage over Syracuse.
 
The Knights got big performances from freshman Jake Koksal (76), Will Tuttle (77), Ethan Newell (78) and Dominic Matteucci (79) in the round – the first time all season the team had posted four scores in the 70s on the same day.
 
“Our season has just been hit and miss,” Newell said. “We’ve never had four guys play well at one tournament. It was one guy would play well and three guys would play OK and we’d shoot OK. We never really played to our potential. Then Tuesday, we played the best we’d played all year.”
 
But on Wednesday, the Knights were struggling to recapture that form. Koksal and Matteucci each made the turn at 9 over and both finished with rounds 11 shots higher than their Day 1 scores. Newell and Tuttle each held it together reasonably well, but also posted higher scores.
 
A day after having four players in the 70s, Sacred Heart had none on Wednesday.
 
Syracuse, meanwhile, saw Brock Keller improve from a 79 on the first day to a 74 and Charlie Keller improved from an 81 to a 75 as they led the Bulldogs’ charge.
 
“I thought Syracuse was going to win,” Newell said. “They’re guys were playing well and our guys were not playing their best. But somehow we found a way to finish it.”
 

Sacred Heart got a huge performance from senior Ben Marrs, who followed up his first-round 81 with an 83 to offset the 90 Matteucci wound up shooting and being a critical fourth score for the Knights, ultimately placing 16th with his 164 total. They also got some help from Syracuse as two Bulldogs made triple bogeys on the back nine that stymied their comeback bid.
 
Ethan Newell led the Knights with a two-day total of 158, taking eighth. Tuttle just missed the top 10, taking 11th with a 160. Koksal finished at 163 and tied for 14th while Marrs was 16th and Matteucci tied for 19th.
 
“This year, we didn’t have a super star,” Patrick Newell said. “In the past, I always had somebody I could count on to shoot a low number. This year it was each person took turns and everybody had their moments over the two days. This year was a team win.
 
“The biggest thing is we had a bunch of guys with state experience. Even though they weren’t as talented as our prior teams have been, that matters.”
 
The lone newcomer to this year’s state team was Koksal, a freshman, and his addition was big in Sacred Heart extending its streak. Though he struggled in Wednesday’s final round with an 87 that was his second-highest score of the season, he consistently produced for the Knights throughout the season with nine of his 10 rounds leading into state at 84 or lower.
 

That included a 71 at regionals where he won a playoff with Cair Paravel’s Caleb Cleverdon – who took second individually at state – essentially driving the green on the par-4 playoff hole and chipping to a foot.
 
“It was unbelievable for a freshman to come in and show that much composure, especially at state,” Newell said. “He shoots a 4-over on the first day of state despite playing in that last group. He showed that the moment wasn’t too big for him, which was impressive. He didn’t play his best (Wednesday), but he didn’t lose his mind.”
 
Syracuse – which posted a 325 second-day score to Sacred Heart’s 333 -- was led by a third-place finish from Brock Keller, who finished at 153, nine shots behind state champion Connor Newman of Humboldt and four behind runner-up Cleverdon. Charlie Keller took sixth with a 156 for the Bulldogs while Jarrett Scott tied for 19th at 169.
 
Hutchinson Trinity, which began Wednesdays’ round in second, slipped to a 342 on the second day and finished third as a team with a 665 total.
 

 
CLASS 2A STATE GOLF
 
At Quail Ridge Golf Course, Winfield
 
TEAM SCORES
 
Sacred Heart 643, Syracuse 649, Hutchinson Trinity 665, TMP-Marian 679, Oakley 682, St. Marys 714.