EDWARDSVILLE • Columbia boys golf coach Tom Detmer calls Nick Osland, Joey Bert and Will Pirtle his "three-headed senior monster."
That trio provided the Eagles with a monstrous amount of firepower Tuesday as Columbia won the school's first Class 2A Regional championship. Paced by their seniors, the Eagles shot 294 and won the Highland Regional at Oak Brook Golf Club by four strokes over second place Althoff.
Osland shot even-par 71 to win medalist honors. Bert carded a 73 for Columbia, followed by Pirtle with a 74 and Michael Barker with a 76.
Althoff shot a 298 and host Highland was third with 311 using scores from Chris Elke (76), Alex Young (77), Jay Hargis (79) and Jesse Johnson (79).
Those three teams advance to the Chatham Glenwood Sectional Monday at Panther Creek Golf Course in Springfield.
"When you shoot that number, you don't mind where you're at (class-wise)," Detmer said. "That's a phenomenal score. You couldn't even throw that one out there in a dream. It was just a good day. Good ball striking.
"We haven't been striking it the best lately. Then last night on the range, I started watching the kids, and they're back hitting it. Today's a nice day and a great win."
Last year, Columbia won the Class 1A Valmeyer Regional. But because there were more schools playing golf in Class 1A than there were in 2A and 3A, the Illinois High School Association opted to move some schools up a class to balance out the numbers. Columbia was one of the teams that was bumped up a class.
"Unfortunately we were in that group," Detmer said. "Somebody was going to be burned by that 2A thing. What are you going to do?
"You can't sit there and worry about," he said "You've got to say, 'We're going to make ourselves better.'"
And Columbia did just that on a sunny and warm (80 degrees) day on the West and North Courses that played 6,231 yards.
"I started off and just wanted to hit that first drive in the fairway and after that I just kept hitting it around," said Osland, who opened with a 34 on the front nine.
"I stayed pretty even all day," he said. "Just one bogey all day long. One red number, one black number. Very consistent. I just kind of pulled it off."
Unlike Osland, Bert started slowly but gradually gained momentum and rolled in with a 2-over 73 (36-37).
"Everything fell together," Bert said. "It could have been a little better, but you're always happy with a one or two over. We've never played against the 2A guys so we really didn't know what to expect. We tried to come out here and do our best...Everything fell together for us."
Pirtle relied on his work around the greens for his 36-38 round.
"I really didn't hit it too good, but the short game is really what matters," he said. "That's what was working for me today. It was unexpected (to win). But I know our team's pretty good and when we're all on we're right up there with them."
Althoff coach Dan Polites wasn't upset with his team's performance as Austin VonAlst (73), Michael Johnson (74), Jimmy Murphy (74) and Sam Lidisky (77) scored for the Crusaders.
"We went low, they just went a tad lower," Polites told his squad of the Columbia score. "We didn't lose. We got beat. Congratulations to Columbia. We knew at the turn, it was brewing to be a dogfight. And sure enough it came down to it."
Individually, Blaine Buente of Triad (74), Clayton Stroker (74) of Waterloo, Johnny Wirth of Waterloo (76), Nick Luttrell of Triad (79), Charles Hawn of Waterloo (80), Matt Buescher of Freeburg (81), Mithcell Royse of Roxana (81), Austin Buente of Highland (81), M.Z. Duprey of Mascoutah (81) and J.T. Barras of Triad (83) advanced to Panther Creek.
