McCallie's Joe Carter, Cleveland's Rheagan Hall win City Prep titles

McCallie eighth-grader wins City prep tournament

Cleveland High's Rheagan Hall watches her drive down the 10th fairway.  The City Prep golf tournament was held at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay State Park on Wednesday September 7, 2016
Cleveland High's Rheagan Hall watches her drive down the 10th fairway. The City Prep golf tournament was held at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay State Park on Wednesday September 7, 2016

Obvious by its name, the City Prep, Wednesday's tournament at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay was a high school competition and one that gave the opportunity to shine the spotlight on the top prep golfers in the Chattanooga area.

Make that the top prep golfers and one other.

McCallie eighth-grader Joe Carter needed two playoff holes but ended up defeating all 47 of his elders in the boys' field to win the individual championship. Carter and Walker Valley's Parker Gray each shot a par round of 72. Carter won the playoff with a birdie putt from a little more than three feet in length.

Cleveland's Rheagan Hall shook off a 6-over front nine and came in with a par 36 for a total of 78, which was good enough for a two-stroke win on the girls' side.

Out of Baylor's five boys, their low score was 73. But no one shot higher than 77, and the Red Raiders' score of 298 was good enough to win the team title by nine strokes over McCallie.

GPS was the girls' team champion with a total of 162, five shots ahead of runner-up Baylor.

Carter and Gray both made a par 4 on No. 1, the first playoff hole, before moving on to the par-5 No. 2. Gray outdistanced Carter as each hit two shots, but Carter liked his position in the center of the fairway. Gray was looking at an uphill chip from way left of the green.

Carter, a left-hander, took his 50-degree wedge and stuck it inside of four feet of the pin. Gray hit his chip a little hard and it raced past the pin. He two-putted coming back for par, but Carter stepped up and sank the match winner.

Carter had shot 36 on each side to get to his total. McCallie coach Rob Riddle said Carter is a "tournament-tough young man" and that his victory was "really, really nice to see."

"I hits 16 greens in regulation," Carter said. "I was happy with that. I was just out here pretty relaxed. I didn't look at the scorecard for a while. I didn't really have any expectations. I just really wanted to have fun."

Hall shot 42 on the front side. She said there were two key factors to her improvement on the back nine.

"I made some really crucial putts I needed to make on the back," Hall said. "My driver wasn't doing too well. I finally just put it in the bag at the turn."

Baylor's 73 came from Gavin Roberson, who played from the No. 5 position. No. 1 player Sam Marshall is the one whose score wasn't counted.

"We kind of reversed our order," Baylor coach Gary Partrick said. "Our drop score was our number-one guy. It was nice the rest of them stepped up, not that 77 is a bad day. It's a bad day for him.

"We've got a really solid team. We truly play team golf. We don't have a Harris English or a Luke List. They understand they have to play for each other. They don't take crazy chances."

GPS won with McKenzie Frizzell shooting 80, good for second place individually, and Hannah Prescott shooting 82. Walker Valley's Kelsey Cassada and Baylor's Danielle Prescott also shot 82s, but Prescott ended up in third place in a scorecard playoff.

"They've been very consistent all year, somewhere between 75 and 85 most of the year," said Riddle, who also coaches the Bruisers. "They played smart and just kept everything in front of the hole."

The boys' third-place finisher was Silverdale Baptist Academy's Dalton Sutton in a scorecard playoff over Baylor's Roberson.

Contact Kelley Smiddie at ksmiddie@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6653. Follow him on Twitter @KelleySmiddie.

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