NBA player Cooper Flagg isn’t the only athlete from the Newport area doing unprecedented things.
The Nokomis Regional High School golf team won its first-ever Class B state championship on Friday, with the Warriors taking home the title at Natanis Golf Course in Vassalboro.
Nokomis cemented an undefeated season with a 45-over-par team total in the 18-hole competition, two strokes ahead of runner-up York.
Head coach Matt Brown said ahead of the state competition that his team hadn’t ever won a state title.
The Warriors got a huge boost from their top player, SJ Welch, whose four-over-par round of 76 earned him the individual state title as well.
Along with proving himself to be one of the best golfers in the state, Welch also proved his coach right.
“I think that our depth is really what gave us the most success, We’re very strong at the top,” Brown said earlier this week. Our top two guys could win individual states this year, which is really nice.”
The coach credited Welch, a senior, for being the team leader and a “very good golfer.”
That was certainly the case at Natanis on Friday.
Nokomis’ number two player, junior Caden Chretien provided huge help for the team’s cause by finishing tied for fifth with an 81.
Daegan Trafton shot an 87 and Owen Buck an 89 for the new state champs. Jett Christie and William Hayes also shot a 96 and 97 respectively for Nokomis.
It caps a magical season for the Warriors golf team, a squad that former Nokomis basketball player and now Dallas Mavericks forward Flagg signed up for as a joke long after his time at the Newport school, according to a report from the Boston Globe earlier this year.
But the Nokomis team’s championship performance on Friday was anything but a joke. It was school history that earned them a place in the state record books.
