Sean Caddigan has one more week left to play in his fall high school sports season. Last year, his team was not even thinking about the playoffs or winning a state title.

But Caddigan isn’t kicking size-5 soccer balls on a 120-yard field anymore. He is instead striking Titleist 5s on 250-yard holes with a driver.

And he’s now a state champion.

“That’s probably one of the special things about this,” said Caddigan. “Winning a state title for your school is something anyone that plays a sport in high school wants to do.”

Caddigan and golf teammate Josh Longway were nowhere to be found on the Mountain Valley Conference golf radar last season. Caddigan was running sprints with the soccer team, while Longway ran mile-repeats and 5-kilometer races with the cross country squad. Both golfers made the switch to golf and were instrumental in their team’s success.

“We certainly wouldn’t have scored like this,” said coach Jim Lunney. “We would have had enough golfers to field a team, but with Josh and Sean, the team became a contender right there.”

On Saturday, Caddigan carded an 80 playing as the Rebels’ No. 3 golfer. Longway had a tougher day, shooting a 103 out of the fourth position, but Lunney realizes that one bad round aside, both golfers have been there to help the team win all season.

“One of the biggest things we get with those two boys is leadership,” said Lunney. “Both of them are starters on the basketball team and they know how to win in tough situations. They are competitive, and in long golf matches, that does come into play.”

For Caddigan and Longway, making the switch to golf was an easy decision.

“It just wasn’t fun for me anymore,” said Caddigan of soccer. “It wasn’t what I expected it to be. I had played golf before, so I figured I’d give it a shot.”

“I had tried to run cross country to help me with basketball, to keep myself in shape,” said Longway. “It didn’t help the way I thought it would.”

While Caddigan played golf in the past, Longway just picked the game up over the summer.

“It worked out well to be able to contribute to a state title in my last year here,” said Longway.

“We get another crack at it next year, too,” said Caddigan, who is just a junior. “All four golfers that scored (Saturday) are coming back next year. That would be something, to try and win two in a row.”

For now, though, Caddigan is concentrating on Saturday’s state individual tournament, which he and two teammates (Errol Andrews and Brady Chapman) qualified more than a week ago.