Freeport’s Eli Spaulding continued his remarkable summer by winning the Maine Match Play Invitational at the Fox Ridge Golf Club in Auburn on Wednesday morning.
Spaulding, who plays out of the Brunswick Golf Club, defeated Andrew Slattery from the Portland Country Club in Falmouth. Spaulding was leading by five holes with four left to play, cementing his victory without needing to play all 18 holes.
Spaulding had already won the Maine Amateur and the New England Amateur, becoming the first Maine golfer in 34 years to do so.
Brian Bickford, the executive director of the Maine Golf Association, said he thought it was the first time anyone had won the Maine Amateur, the New England Amateur and the Match Play Invitational in the same year.
Spaulding, who will be a sophomore at Loyola University in Maryland in the fall, won five matches to claim the Match Play title.
The three-time Maine Class B schoolboy champion opened the Match Play competition with a win over T.J. Folsom of the Augusta Country Club, and followed that with his closest match — a one-hole win over Justin Irish of the Webhannet Golf Club in Kennebunk.
He earned a victory over Joshua Trivino of the York Golf and Tennis Club in the quarterfinals and a win over Kellen Adickes of the Goose River Golf Club in Rockport.
Slattery reached the championship round with a win over Justin Clouatre of the Val Halla Golf Course in Cumberland, a triumph over Ronald Kelton Jr. of the Purpoodock Club in Cape Elizabeth, a quarterfinal round win over Drew Glasheen from the Waterville Country Club and a win over Joe Baker of the Norway Country Club in the semifinals.
Earlier this summer, Spaulding rallied dramatically with seven birdies in his last 10 holes to win the New England Amateur by two shots.
And he captured his second consecutive Maine Amateur title by erasing a three-shot deficit in the final round to win by four strokes.
Next up for Spaulding is the U.S. Amateur at the Olympic Club in San Francisco from Aug. 11-17.
