The annual golf challenge between the six schools in Adams and Wells County was held Saturday at Wabash Valley G.C. Bellmont H.S. won the Bi-County championship with a team score of 322 on a gorgeous day for golf. Norwell finished in second place just 5 strokes behind the Braves with a 327 total. Bluffton was third with 339 followed by host Adams Central with 357. South Adams was fifth with 369 and Southern Wells finished with a total of 411 strokes.
               Winston Brown of Bellmont was the individual champion with an outstanding even-par 71. Teammate Owen Minnick earned runner-up honors with a fine score of 74. Cooper Sloan finished third with a 76 to lead the Norwell effort. Bluffton’s Ephraim Frauhiger and Keegan Schwartz shot 77 and 78 respectively to finish fourth and fifth. Norwell’s Ethan Ottinger was the only other golfer in the field to break 80 as he came in sixth individually with a 79.
Brown began his round with a bogey, but he birdied the sixth hole to get back to even par. He made two bogeys and two birdies on the back side for his even par final score. Minnick made two birdies on the round shooting 37 on each side for his 74 total as the two Braves continue to provide Bellmont with an outstanding one-two punch. Bryce Rickord at 88, Jayden Haines at 89 and Gage Bressler at 90 were enough to earn the team Championship for the Braves. Rickord went 44 – 44 with nine pars for the round. Haines shot 45 – 44 with a birdie on #11. Bressler struggled on the front with a 49 but toured the back side in 41 strokes and a birdie on #13.
For the runner-up Knights, Sloan shot one-under 35 on the front and a birdie on #11 got him to two-under par. The next four holes were not kind as he went six over on that stretch. He finished solidly though to card 41 on the back for his third-place total. Ottinger got off to a slow start going eight over par on the first six holes. He would right the ship however and played the last twelve holes even par, a stretch that featured four birdies for his 79 total. Chase Hulvey shot 42 – 43, 85 and Derek Smith went 44 – 43, 87 as Norwell placed four individuals in the top ten. Bodie Zimmer was the fifth scorer with a 93.
For Bluffton, Frauhiger’s 77 featured an eagle on hole #11, the only eagle of the day in the tournament. Schwartz shot 37 on the front, but couldn’t get much going on the back. Kade Abbett shot 89 for the third Tiger score. Declan Griesser and Connor Klopfenstein each had a 95 to round out the team score for Bluffton.
               Adams Central got 87’s from Keaton Bush and Eddie Everett to lead the team to their fourth-place finish. Jayden Sharpe came back from a 48 on the front to shoot 41 on the back for an 89 total. Micah McClure was the fourth counter for the Jets with a 94 and Owen Johnson shot 98 to round out the scoring.
               South Adams had recently played one of their better nine-hole rounds but struggled on Saturday as all five golfers finished in the nineties. Tristen Dailey and Ricky Nava each shot 91 to lead the Starfires. Conner Fear shot 93 and Silas Loshe 94 to provide the third and fourth scores for the team. Graham Subler’s 97 finished off scoring for South Adams.