State AA golf: Sentinel's Kade McDonough, Bozeman's Sami Yates take home state titles

MISSOULA — The State AA golf tournament concluded Friday in Missoula with the Bozeman girls making another historic run, and a freshman breaking onto the scene in the boys tournament.

On the girls side, it was Bozeman's three golfers -- Cooper Knarr, Sami Yates, and Franchi Ceartin -- who were positioned first, second and third, respectively, at the beginning of Day 2.

Day 2 teed off at Missoula Country Club that features tighter fairways and more trees than Day 1's venue at Larchmont Golf Course.

• Photos: State AA golf Day 2

To start the day Knarr led Yates by two strokes. By the end of the tournament, Yates and Knarr went back and forth with Yates finishing one stroke ahead, shooting a 74 to win the individual title by one stroke (152).

Knarr finished with a total of 153, shooting a 77 on Day 2.

Ceartin finished tied for fifth with an 18-over-par 161.

In the end, Bozeman crushed the rest of the field as a team, winning the state title with a combined 66-over-par 638.

“Our team just really has been grinding and we’ve been talking about every single tournament like every shot counts," said Yates. "I really think that our team took that to heart and I saw the girls just grinding and really just putting all they had into their golf game.”

It's Bozeman's fifth straight girls team title, dating back to 2016.

The next-closest team was Billings West, led by junior golfer Kadence Fischer. West finished with a combined 699.

"I am so proud of my team, they did so good," said Fischer. "Like we beat some teams that we haven’t beat all year. We really fought through this state tournament."

On the boys side, it was freshman Kade McDonough who held his Day 1 lead and led the Missoula Sentinel Spartans to their first team title since 1999.

McDonough was the only player in both fields to shoot under par on Day 1 at Larchmont, with a 2-under 70. He continued that performance on Day 2 shooting a 2-under 70 once again to finish 4-under with a 140.

Sentinel's Joe Opitz, Andrew Hauser and Zach Hangas rounded out the Spartan scores, shooting 72, 73, and 82, respectively, on Day 2 to help lead them to the title.

"(Thursday) I didn’t even play that bad, I just had trouble adjusting to the greens, so it felt good to just get back to a more common territory," said Opitz.

In the Bozeman Gallatin Raptors' first year as a school, they asserted themselves as a threat in Class AA moving forward.

Their three junior golfers, Justus and Jordan Verge and Stevie Voight, all shot in the 70s on both days and helped lead the Raptors to second place in the team competition.

"Overall, the team played pretty good, we played pretty smart (Friday)," said Justus Verge. "(Thursday) we got in some trouble we probably shouldn’t have. Overall, I think as a team I’m really proud of how we fought and hung in there. No one had their A-game on both days, so it was a grind for sure. But that’s golf, so you have to love the good and the bad."

Jordan and Justus finished in second and third, respectively, shooting a 144 and 150. Voight finished in seventh place with a 10-over 153.

"No matter what we shot, we were going to have fun doing it," said Voight. "I played pretty good over the two days, had some putts that didn’t fall Day 1, but as a team we put it in the trees a little too much (Friday) so that was probably our downfall as a group."

Here are the final boys scores:

Here are the final girls scores: