BRETTON WOODS, N.H. — Stevens High’s Finn Allen is getting a little weary of golf. Unfortunately, he’s too good at it to have to stop quite yet.
Allen and Cardinal teammate Dylan Adamovich both finished below the cut line at the Mount Washington Resort at the NHIAA Division III state team golf championship to advance to Sunday’s final 18-hole round in Concord. Adamovich carded an 11-over-par 83 to share ninth place, while Allen — often Adamovich’s playing partner away from Stevens matches — tied for 13th two strokes back.
The top 20 golfers from Tuesday will play for state individual honors at Beaver Meadow Golf Course on Sunday. That field won’t include any Lebanon Raiders, although one of longtime coach Chris Pollard’s charges nearly succeeded with a surprise run.
“Our goal was to come top four in the state championship, and that’s definitely achievable for next year,” said Allen, whose team placed sixth out of 12 teams. “We all worked very hard over the summer.”
Then Allen added with a grin, “But at this point, I’m pretty tired of golf.”
Stevens (74-over-par 362) made a late charge to move from ninth place after entering as the team tournament’s fourth seed at 23-7. Lebanon, which tied for the 10th seed through the regular season, ended up 10th (96-over 384), beating Fall Mountain and Laconia.
“It’s right about what I figured,” Pollard said. “Our goal was 10th place, not lose, hopefully make up a couple. We hit what we wanted. We had four kids under 100, which was another goal. … It’s a young team.”
Derryfield (320) capped an undefeated season by rallying late to nip Bow (325). The Falcons were seeking their eighth D-III team championship in nine years.
For the Cardinals and Raiders, however, the day was as much about the future as the present. Lebanon is trying to regain the form that led to a runner-up D-III result three years ago; Stevens came within a stroke of an NHIAA Class I crown in 2001 but hasn’t inhaled such lofty air since. Both get their entire rosters back next year.
Allen put the onus on Stevens’ rapid improvement to the commitment of coaches Ryan Seaver, Ian MacDonald and Brian Stowell, but someone has to put in the work. Seaver said both Allen and Adamovich have bought into the program and have made considerable strides as a result.
“Today, we really wanted to see how we did in a stroke-play event; this is the first time we’ve seen it,” said Seaver, whose team uses modified Stableford scoring based on points rather than strokes in the D-III regular season. “We still shot some good scores, but conditions were a little bit windy, cold, and a lot of these kids just don’t play 18-hole rounds.”
Allen and Adamovich both started their days on No. 1, with the bright white of the Mount Washington Hotel looming over the tee. Both improved as the day progressed; each golfer improved by three strokes over the course’s hillier back nine.
“I felt that my round went pretty well,” Adamovich said. “The first few holes went pretty well. The next seven were kind of rough. The greens were pretty tough, really sandy. But other than that, it went pretty well.”
Reeve Wilkinson (92) and C.J. Naugler (102) completed the Cardinals’ team round. Cedric Allen (110) and Matt Eagan (161) also took to the course for Stevens.
The Raiders didn’t deliver a cut-busting score but got consistent rounds from Joe Roberts (89), Nathan Stark (98), Roy Shapard (98) and Zach Bitler (99). Ben Begin (106), Charlie Cloud (107) and Stephen Krueger (110) weren’t far back.
Of the group, Roberts — who missed advancing by a single shot — surprised the most. Playing seventh in the ladder after flitting in and out of the varsity lineup all fall, the junior parred the 15th hole to open his round and added two more on the front side. A par-par finish on 13 and 14, however, couldn’t undo the damage of a 9 on the par-5 11th, leaving Roberts to lament an otherwise superb round.
“The driver was definitely helping out today,” he said. “There was a few holes where I could have done better overall, where I had 9s or 7s. But it just kind of came from chipping and putting and trying to go for bogey golf and having the pars come naturally.”
Both Seaver and Pollard hope that kind of approach will produce more improvements in a year’s time.
“The future’s looking pretty good for us,” Seaver said.
Chip Shots: Pelham’s Russell Hamel fired an even-par 72 to take a one-stroke lead on Derryfield’s Gunnar Senatore heading into Sunday. Bow’s Jake Mielcarz, a cousin of New Hampshire amateur golfing legend Bob Mielcarz, is two shots back. Bob Mielcarz is a nine-time winner of the N.H. amateur championship. … On a day when ski hats and long pants were the norm, Stevens’ Naugler stood out — and seemed comfortable — in a standard short-sleeve Cardinals golf shirt and shorts. The tee time temperature was 44 degrees.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.