BOUNTIFUL — All season long, Region 1 boys golf has had a decent amount of drama.

Four different teams won the seven regular-season tournaments, which featured seven different individual champions — two tied for first place in one tournament — and just one multi-time champion.

There were matches where the difference between second, third and fourth place for teams was a total of three shots.

Razor-thin doesn’t begin to describe how close it’s been coming into Monday’s final round of the region championship, where three teams — Fremont, Layton and Farmington — were mathematically still in the hunt for the trophy.

In the end, Fremont High shot a two-day score of 588 to hold off Weber, a team that was mathematically not in the region title hunt, for the region tournament championship at Bountiful Ridge and, in the process, FHS secured the season-long region title over Layton.

The Silverwolves won the first three region matches of the season by a total of 15 shots and finished the regular season how they started.

Then Layton took over, winning two matches at Davis Park (by three shots) and Valley View (by 10). In between, the Lancers took second place at The Barn by one shot to Weber and at Remuda by, again, one shot to Farmington.

“It was a grind all year, they started off well then they kind of got in a little bit of a slump. I think winning early kind of got us a little bit overconfident, so having a couple losses there kind of recharged us a little bit,” Fremont coach Broc Baliff said.

Fremont’s Jett Iverson shot 144 over the two days and led the region-winning team with a 71 on Monday, earning some applause when he stuck his approach shot on the 18th hole to within a few feet of the flag.

Rounding out FHS’ scoring contingent in the second round were Chase Burton (72), Karson Tesch (72), Broc Bensen (76) and Kyson Christiansen (76). They wrapped up the school’s first region title in boys golf since 2012.

Photo supplied, Lisa Dalebout The Fremont High boys golf team poses with the Region 1 trophy Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, at Bountiful Ridge Golf Course.

The race for season-long medalist honors was up in the air coming into the first round of the region tournament, which was held Friday at Wolf Creek in the Ogden Valley.

That honor went to Layton’s David Liechty, who won medalist honors at the region tournament with a two-day score of 143, bolstered by Monday’s even-par 71.

Liechty came into the region tournament with the lowest season scoring average at 70.67 shots per round, one of six players who was averaging a sub-72 round each match before the tournament.

Monday’s low round belonged to Weber’s Cayson VanBeekum, who carded a 2-under-par 69.

His Weber teammate, Russel Messerly, was one of four players to shoot 71 on Monday, an impressive feat for him considering some troubles off the tee early in the back nine.

In winning the region championship, Fremont not only had to hold its own against a handful of other schools that had winning potential, but the Silverwolves had to get past a challenging, hilly Bountiful Ridge course on a hazy afternoon.

“The greens were fast today, so it was a battle and I think they responded to the adversity that hit them a little bit,” Baliff said.

The state tournament is next Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 4-5, and it’s at a course much closer to home for Region 1 schools than normal: Davis Park in Kaysville/Fruit Heights.

It was originally supposed to be at Timpanogos Golf Club in Provo before that course ran into some greenskeeping issues that made hosting a big event a non-starter.

2A FALL BASEBALL BRACKETS RELEASED

Utah Military Academy and St. Joseph High’s fall baseball teams learned their playoff assignments on Monday.

UMA (6-6) is the No. 5 seed in the 2A fall baseball playoff bracket and will play a one-game quarterfinal at American Heritage Academy in American Fork on Saturday at noon. The Thunderbirds went unbeaten last fall and won the championship behind shutdown pitching and defense.

St. Joseph (1-13) is the No. 9 seed and will face No. 8 UMA-Camp Williams in a play-in game Saturday at noon, with the winner facing No. 1 APA-West Valley at 2:30 p.m. that day.

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