On Oct. 31, Halloween day, the Marauder boys varsity golf team went to Jacksonville to take on 12 other teams in a 1A regional match. The match was hosted by Episcopal School of Jacksonville at the Marsh Landing Golf and Country Club. The Marauders will not be heading to the next round as a team but senior Lee Poppell came in second place and will be heading to states to represent the Marauders.

The boys were presented with a difficult challenge of navigating a course that they were not as familiar with and it had different unique characteristics. A course that is similar to the course they competed on is St. James Bay which is located in Carrabelle, FL where the Marauder team was able to get some practice in for this regional match. The par for the course was 71 and Poppell was able to shoot one under par.

“I’m looking forward to my last highschool tournament being at states,” Poppell said. “I really enjoy the course and it’s fitting that’s where my highschool golf will end.”

Florida State University High School and Episcopal School of Jacksonville were two of the Marauders’ biggest competitors. While Poppell got second overall in the match, the only other competitor from Maclay to place was freshman Hayden Chaires who got 24th overall. It was Chaires’ first time playing in a regional match. There were 70 total kids playing throughout the match.

“I felt good about it being a freshman playing my first year but did not feel good about how I played, especially since Lee played really well,” Chaires said. “I could have given him a better score hopefully to make it to state but we did not have the numbers we needed to make it.”

The Florida High golf team finished in third place and will be making it to states. As the regional match was only a one day tournament, states is a two day tournament.

“We played okay,” head coach Joe Kupiszewski said. “We had some ups and downs. There were some kids, it was their first time participating which is always a neat experience and I was really happy for our senior captain who looked normal, just consistent and really good all around. I was really happy for him that he qualified for state.”