All apologies to Allen Iverson, but a little extra practice doesn’t hurt when you’re preparing to win another state title.
An already confident Heritage Academy boys golf team proved that to be the case Tuesday, as it used practice rounds Sunday and Monday to help put it in position to shoot a 307 to win the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) Class AAA State title at Hattiesburg Country Club.
Senior Dalton Ford led Heritage Academy to its second-straight championship by finishing second with a 70. He had four birdies and 13 pars and a double bogey on No. 18. Moak Griffin (fifth, 75), Cason Westmoreland (76), Josh Neal (86), Chapman Cooper (87), and Robert Brown (91) played for the Patriots, who also won boys golf state titles in 2011 and 2013.
“I was very proud of the guys today, especially Dalton Ford,” Heritage Academy coach Ed Lott said. “Cason stepped up with a 76. That was a big number for us.”
Heritage Academy, which was the first team to finish, edged North Delta Academy (309) for the title. Heritage Academy defeated North Delta Academy on the first playoff hole to win the Class AAA North State crown.
Lott said practice rounds Sunday and Monday helped the Patriots shoot a round he thought was even better than the season-low round of 297 earlier in the season. Lott praised the excellent conditions of the golf course as well as seniors Ford, Westmoreland, and Brown for leading the way to another championship.
Ford hit 14 of 18 greens to set the tone. Lott said Ford’s strength off the tee enabled him to have a stress-free round.
Ford also was pleased with his accuracy off the tee. He said he has hit 16 of 18 greens in a round, but he said he putted well and able to position his shots in the center of the greens so he could keep his momentum going.
“We just focused really hard and we all tried to put up a low number for our team,” Ford said. “You really want to play well for those guys.”
Ford said it took him three or four holes until he realized he was in “one of those zones” where everything feels right. He said he felt like he was hitting the ball solidly early on and that everything was going straight. Once Ford hit his stride, he said he knew it was going to be a good day, even if the round ended with a double bogey.
As the first team to finish, Ford didn’t know if that double bogey would turn out to cost him and his team.
“We had to wait like what felt like forever,” Ford said. “We were waiting on that second-place team to get in because we knew they were our main competition.
“I kept thinking if we lost by one or two shots I was going to keep kicking myself and think about that last hole. Luckily my teammates played well.”
Ford, who was on the team as an eighth-grader but didn’t play in the state championship, said the team effort helped the Patriots realize a goal they had discussed since last season’s state title. He said all of the players knew the team had the potential to do it. He agreed with Lott that Heritage Academy’s 307 was even better than the 297 earlier in the season because it faced more pressure and the course set up trickier.
Still, Heritage Academy was able to use what it learned from the practice round Sunday and the fine-tuning it did Monday to help it repeat.
Westmoreland said the pin placements didn’t change from the team’s practice round Sunday to Tuesday, which gave the players confidence they knew where to hit their shots.
“I am very proud of that accomplishment,” Ford said of winning back-to-back titles. “I am just thankful for such great teammates these last five years. We have had some awesome times together.”
Lott agreed and said Heritage Academy’s victory against North Delta in the playoff made the players concentrate more. He also credited playing three days in a row for aiding the team’s preparation.
That wouldn’t have been the way Iverson, a former NBA All-Star who had his biggest success with the Philadelphia 76ers, would have done it. The high-scoring guard was known for playing hard in games, but he also earned a reputation for not loving practice after he gave an interview eschewing the importance of it.
It turns out Heritage Academy needed as much practice time as it could get to help Ford, Neal, and Griffin find their swings following boys basketball season. Once those players found their rhythm, Lott said the Patriots came together at the right time to realize their potential.
“I knew at the beginning of the year it was going to be slow going and a work in progress to get them back to the form they were at the end of the year last year,” Lott said. “The weather gets better and you’re playing more and practicing more and once that happens they get an idea in their head that they can repeat, and they went out and did it.
“I was very proud of all of them.”
Westmoreland praised the play of Griffin, Neal, and Cooper for helping to send the seniors out on a high note. He hopes the next classes can work just as hard to send the seniors out with championships.
“I have been on the team since the seventh grade, and I started traveling with the team in the eighth grade, which was the 2013 year we won the state title at Hattiesburg Country Club,” Westmoreland said. “It holds some of my best memories in my time at Heritage, and I hope they can carry on the success in the future.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @cdispatch.com
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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