By Justin Pelletier,Staff Writer

Sure, Poland Regional High School’s golf team fell one stroke shy of capturing its first Class B state title Wednesday, but its honesty and integrity are fully intact.

Faced with a critical putt midway through the round, Poland senior Halsey Copp grounded his club behind the ball. He turned to his playing companions and told them he was taking a one-stroke penalty because he saw the ball move.

“They all asked him if he was sure,” said Poland coach Dan Novak. “None of them had seen it.”

Copp insisted on taking the stroke penalty, though, and play continued.

Following the round, Poland learned that it fell short of the Class B state title by one shot. Cape Elizabeth defeated the Knights by a final count of 307-308.

“We would have still tied with that one shot,” said Novak, “but we had the tiebreak. Despite all of that, though, we had finished 15 shots behind Cape in the qualifier, so to lose by just one shows a remarkable improvement for this team.”

Copp has become the epitome of tough luck at Poland. In his four years on the team, Copp has missed qualifying for the individual tournament by one stroke each year.

“He said, Look, I come from a golfing family, and it would have been wrong not to call that,'” said Novak. “I’ve only seen one other instance where a golfer called something like that on himself in all of my years around the sport, and it was Halsey again, during a regular-season match last year.”

Novak said that since Wednesday’s match, several athletic directors and coaches have called to congratulate him and the team for their actions.

“We were a little disappointed with second,” said fellow senior Keegan Fennessy, “but we really feel we’re No. 1 because we were honest golfers. That proved it.”

On an equally bright note for Poland, Fennessy shot a 70 to win the Class B individual title.

“We were hoping, when Keegan was on the cover of the sports tab with the paper, that it wouldn’t be another kind of Sports Illustrated jinx or something,” said Novak. “Then he comes back and wins this thing.”

For Fennessy, it was a fitting end to a solid career with Poland.

“That’s the way I wanted it to end,” said Fennessy, who was also worried that the championships might even be washed out completely. “They kept pushing back our WMC championships and eventually canceled those, so I was worried a bit about states.”

Rebels run wild

For the fourth time since 1997, a team repeated as Class C golf champion Wednesday, but for the first time, the team came from Western Maine.

Telstar used solid, if not spectacular rounds from golfers two through five, and lights-out play from Class C individual champion Brady Chapman to shoot a four-ball total of 311 to take the Class C crown.

“The kids all played very well,” said Telstar coach Jim Lunney. “We’re all very pleased with the results. We were the defending champs and we wanted to defend. It was that simple.”

Three seniors on the Rebels’ squad – Chapman, Errol Andrews and Sean Caddigan – helped to lead the charge. Caddigan shot in the mid-70s as the No. 2 golfer, and Andrews, playing with what might be a broken bone in his hand from an accident in a physical education class, carded a round in the mid-80s after a quadruple-bogey-triple-bogey start.

Sophomore Kyle Mains came in with what turned out to be the clinching 83, and Braydon Crockett-Rice followed a 54 on his first nine with a 38 on his second.

Chapman had the low round of the day, regardless of class, with his 68. At one point, Chapman was 5-under-par.

“I think, aside from the wet conditions, it was really tough playing in my group,” said Chapman. “It was definitely a mental thing.”

The rounds for Classes B and C, played on the same course, ran more than six hours. Golfers had to sit a lot and wait at tees.

Soggy Devils

Gone Wednesday were the long rolls, the consistent greens and solid lies beneath the golfers’ feet. In their place were mud holes, plugged balls and choppy greens, making conditions at Natanis Golf Course ideal for pig wrestling – but not for golf.

Lewiston coach Don Jalbert called the conditions “very different” than two weeks ago when the Blue Devils bested the KVAC field at the conference qualifier.

On Wednesday, Lewiston came up six strokes shy of Cheverus for the Class A crown. The Stags’ 316 was lower than Lewiston’s qualifying score of 317, and that 317 included a lower-than-average round from No. 1 Dan Cloutier.

“It was a big advantage (Wednesday) if you could keep the ball in the short grass,” said Jalbert. “Around the greens, there was no way to really gauge it. If you were hitting the ball out of the rough, you were hitting out of slog.”

Cloutier rebounded Wednesday to shoot a 76, which had he qualified for the individual tournament, would have placed him tied for fifth with freshman Ryan Gay of Gardiner.

Brandon Marcotte, who consistently shot in the middle-to-high 70s this season, had an 88 Wednesday for Lewiston. His score was the one of five that did not count toward the team total.