POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. • Kyle Weldon looked from the tee of the second hole at Westwood Hills Country Club and thought of his coach.
With water on either side of the fairway on the par-5 hole, the Parkway South senior left his driver in the bag Friday.
"He use to always say on holes that were tight or holes that would have trouble, he would say, ‘two 7-irons, or two 5-irons,'" Weldon said. "That voice kind of came on in my head and I was like all right, I don't think I should hit driver."
A day after attending the funeral of their coach Mark Wade, who died Saturday of a heart attack, the Patriots honored him by qualifying for the MSHSAA Class 4 state tournament.
Parkway South and Poplar Bluff tied for the top spot, with the Mules winning the tiebreaker by seven strokes, while CBC finished just three shots back.
Weldon earned co-medalist honors with Eureka's Matt Miklas as each shot a 2-over-par 73.
Weldon did it without a birdie, starting his round with 12 straight pars, while Miklas sank birdie putts on a pair of par-3 holes to go with 12 pars.
Theodore Jones of Eureka was a shot behind the leaders for third while Parkway South's David Arth and Tanner Bulejski of CBC tied for fourth at 75.
The cut for the final qualifying spot was 82.
Jack Darland shot 83 for the Patriots while Jacob Frericks shot 87. Wesley Allard's 92 counted as the tiebreaker but played the back 9 four shots better than the front.
"Coach Wade talked about being mentally tough, he used the term grind," Parkway South coach Jason Koehrer said. "Any one of these guys if you asked them would say coach would want us to grind.
"And they grinded it out today."
Westwood Hills played tough with fast greens after drying out following an 11-day period that saw more rain than the previous six months.
The host Mules, who missed eight days of school due to area flooding, rallied with three birdies on 18 and got an 85 from their fifth player to edge Parkway South as each team shot 318.
CBC finished at 321 after leading at the turn but qualified Bulejski, Dominic Kacich (80) and Nicholas Winston (82).
Lindbergh shot 330 as Justin Stacer (78), Drew Ervin (82) and Jacob Arends (82) qualified for state.
Other individual qualifiers included Rockwood Summit's Robert Ray, Ladue's Seth Smith and Scott Schaeffer of SLUH, who each shot 78. Marquette's Zach Gollwitzer qualified at 79, Michael Becker of Webster Groves at 80 and Seckman's Dylan Saxner at 82.
The state tournament will be held May 16-17 at Twin Oaks Country Club in Springfield.
The Patriots will be there, a decade after Parkway South won its only state title under Wade, who died at the age of 59.
The long-time coach was honored in many ways Friday with his players wearing red, white and blue ribbons on their shirts. Fellow coaches wore buttons with his initials while CBC had ‘MW' stitched onto their shirts.
"That was pretty special," Weldon said. "We felt like everyone was pulling for us.
"Obviously they probably wanted to get through but it felt good to have everyone pulling for us
