Parkersburg South golfers Parker Vannoy, left, and Cameron Fallon will compete in the West Virginia High School State Tournament beginning today and wrapping up Wednesday in Wheeling. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — The Mid-Ohio Valley will be looking to bring back some hardware from the annual West Virginia state golf tournament, which begins today at Wheeling’s Oglebay Resort.

St. Marys head coach Catie Hamilton’s program watched Wheeling Central end the Blue Devils’ march toward a fourth consecutive Class A state crown last fall.

Parkersburg South boss John Badgley is happy to have Cameron Fallon join Parker Vannoy in the triple-A field. The junior Vannoy is making his third appearance at the par-71 Trent Jones layout where he finished tied for fourth place and earned all-state honors in 2022.

The two Patriots recently played in Wheeling at the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference tournament and had a practice round on Monday. Vannoy earned all-OVAC after shooting an 83, but the sophomore Fallon’s 84 missed by a stroke.

“I feel good for the boys. They had a really good region,” Badgley said. “They have both played a Jones course in Wheeling probably eight to 10 times I would say. They both are familiar with the course and they like it. I’m excited for both of them. I know both the boys are looking forward to it. Both boys are very competitive. There’s a lot of good individual players in the tournament.

Roane County golfer Daren Raines displays his golf ball which resulted in a hole-in-one at the Little Kanawha Conference Championships at Mingo Bottom Golf Club in Elizabeth. Raines and his Raider teammates will compete in the Class AA portion of the state golf tournament. (Photo provided)

“(Hurricane’s) Savannah (Hawkins, 2022 runner-up) can compete with any of the guys. You have Solas (Chinn-Kreiner) from Morgantown. You have Jack Michael from Cabell Midland. He shot under par in our regional. He will be a contender obviously. I think the triple-A part is loaded this year. You know, and then not to forget, I don’t want to leave out University’s Landon Spiker. Spiker is a really good golfer also.”

The only other returning all-stater from the area is Wahama’s Grant Roush, who will be joined by teammates Jesse Jordan, Brady Meadows and Nathan Fields. The White Falcons finished two strokes back of runner-up St. Marys last year.

“The kids have had a tremendous season,” expressed coach Hamilton. “We had our largest team to date since I’ve began coaching with 11 kids. I loved to see how well they all got along and worked together to help each other improve on their own individual games.

“Additionally, we added two new girls to our program and have a total of three. Our upperclassmen have really proven themselves this season and have shown how much their hard work in the offseason has paid off.”

St. Marys, which has a team record of 193-14, won its fifth straight LKC title and brings back Cole Darnold (11th), Preston Lawhon (T14th) and Trent Renner (17th), has not been defeated yet this season by any school in Class A.

“We know we definitely have our work cut out for us at the state tournament and we are just trying to stay focused,” added coach Hamilton, who also plans to utilize McKenzie Armstrong both today and Wednesday. “There will be some tough competition, but our team is determined and I have full faith in them that they could potentially win the whole thing.

“Right now our intentions are to play the same four individuals both days. However, we have two alternates (Tripp Morrison and Brady Rinard) on stand-by and we could make the decision to switch players out at any time if we needed to. We have won three state championships and a runner-up place in the past four years and we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.”

Roane County veteran boss Bubba Kendall is glad to have his Raiders back in the fold as a team in Class AA after advancing only Emerson Simons last season.

“Since 2010 I have had an individual or a team at the state tournament with the exception of 2018, so this year is year number 12 of 13 years at the state tournament,” noted Kendall, who watched Daren Raines ace the par-3, 16th at Mingo Botttom Golf Club during the Little Kanawha Conference championship. “At the start of the season, I thought we had several young kids coming back, three with state tournament experience from their freshman year being Lucas Hall and Jayden Webb, and Daren Raines shared the fourth spot that year.

“Having a rough start in the Callaway high school series, I really didn’t know what kind of team I was looking at. There was no give in with this squad. We settled down and played our LKC foes pretty tough. We ended up fourth overall in the LKC behind three other teams also heading to the state tournament. The expectation is for the kids to go and get experience in playing in such a large event. They will be serious next year and we hope to return with much experience and maybe have a shot at winning a state tournament.”

Roane County, which had a four-peat in Class AA from 2012-15, also will have Cody Nichols competing.

Calhoun County’s Landon Bennett returns to Wheeling after finishing tied for 12th. The same goes for Ravenswood’s Kelan Lucas, who will try to improve upon a tied for 24th effort.

Doddridge County, which had a golf program for just the second time ever, will be represented for the first time at state by Caleb Sutton. Williamstown (Will Barniak) and Ritchie County (Ryan Weekley) also advanced one golfer apiece.

Gilmer County head coach Jacob Wolfe’s Titans will try to top their eighth-place showing from a season ago when Braylon Mencer, Austin Stewart and Seth Stewart competed at Oglebay. They will be joined by lone Titan senior Kaden Putnam.

Roush was the LKC Player of the Year after carding a 70. The other all-LKC golfers who qualified for state were Darnold, Morrison, Barniak, Webb, Bennett, Renner, Lawhon, Meadows and Austin Stewart.

Even though Parkersburg South narrowly missed qualifying as a team, Badgley knows golf is a tough sport.

“I’ll say this, we are so excited to have two kids representing this year,” said the coach. “I’m disappointed that our team itself did not qualify. We missed qualifying by three strokes. That’s tough.

“With the scores Parker and Cam put up we were in good shape, but we just were a little bit short. That just goes to show you how tough our region was. I’m not bellyaching, but we had a tough region. I hope they have a great state tournament and a lot of fun up there.”