MIAA Division 3 Golf State Championship: Historic day for Reid Ohanesian, Ayer Shirley

Reid Ohanesian shot a 3-over-par 75 to earn medalist honors and lead Ayer Shirley Regional to its first MIAA Division 3 Golf State Championship at Foxborough Country Club.

Ayer Shirley, which won the Division 3 Central Championship a week earlier after prevailing on a tiebreaker in 2023, finished with a +43 score to easily outdistance the 11-team field. Monomoy Regional took the runner-up trophy at +51, 8 strokes back. Weston High, which was aiming for a third consecutive state championship, instead settled for a +53 and third place.

Weston's William Goldstein finished second in the individual competition at +6 while playing in a group with Ohanesian, Blaise Chatigny of Sandwich High and Ryan Hebert of Montachusett Tech - a foursome of No. 1 players for last week's sectional team champions. Hebert was the D3 West individual champion while Goldstein (D3 North) and Chatigny (D3 South) were co-medalists in their respective tournaments.

Tommy Bergin of Ayer Shirley, the D3 Central medalist last week, made a big recovery after shooting +10 for his first 10 holes. Bergin was 1-over for the final eight, including birdies on Nos. 13 and 16 to give a boost to the Panthers' championship efforts.

Rounding out the scoring for Ayer Shirley were Aadi Patel in T-17 (+13 85) and Jason Turner in T-27 (+16 88).

After getting off to a shaky start with a double-bogey on No. 2, his second hole of the day, Ohanesian bounced back by birdieing the 162-yard, par-3 No. 3. It was one of five birdies carded on the day by Ohanesian, including his final one on the 149-yard, par-3 No. 17. Despite a bogey on the par-5 final hole, Ohanesian essentially clinched the individual championship as well as the team title for the Panthers.

Hank Brown of Monomoy finished third (+7 79), and Tyler Labonte of Monson High was another stroke back in fourth place. Tying for fifth at +9 were another pair of co-medalists from last week: Gray West of Manchester Essex (D3 North with Goldstein) and Ben Catalano of Cape Cod Academy (D3 South with Chatigny).