BELCHERTOWN — Jason Borque peered over at his two players, Ryan MacGregor and Caiden Drohan, as they walked by each other during the final stretch of holes at the PVIAC Boys Golf Two-Ball Invitational on Monday afternoon at Cold Spring Country Club in Belchertown.

The South Hadley head coach couldn’t quite get a read on if the look MacGregor and Drohan gave them indicated they were having a good round or not.

Borque didn’t get the excitement from them that he had hoped for.

“They passed by me late in their round and kind of gave me a head nod, but not a super enthusiastic one, so I thought that maybe they were doing all right, but maybe not great because they didn’t show me too much,” Borque said. “Knowing both of their abilities, I knew they would find a way to be in the mix.”

Find a way they did.

After starting on hole 16, MacGregor and Drohan walked to the 11th tee box even par through 13 holes. Despite playing solid golf, they knew that wasn’t going to be enough.

MacGregor then got hot, birdying holes 11, 12 and 14 — with Drohan adding clutch pars on 13 and 15 — to help the pair shoot a scorching 3-under through their last five holes. The Tigers turned in a score of 68 at the par-71 track in Belchertown, good enough for second place behind only Minnechaug’s 66. Belchertown finished in third place with a 70 on its home course.

On their own balls alone, MacGregor (71) and Drohan (76) played extremely well. Together, they were on fire.

“That was the turning point for us,” MacGregor said of the last five holes. “Caiden made a huge putt on the 13th to make par, and then I came back on 14 with a birdie. We finished strong and that was the deciding factor. All around, we both played great … The biggest aspect was the teamwork. I would come in with a couple of bogeys, but then Caiden would come in with a par.”

Neither MacGregor nor Drohan had a good practice round when the two played at Cold Spring the other day. But instead of letting the bad round get to them, they took it as a positive.

In their eyes, they got all the bad swings out of the way. They were due for a good round. Plus, according to MacGregor, Drohan always bounces back anytime he struggles. It was inevitable his partner was going to be locked in on Monday.

“For him, anytime he has a bad round, you know he’s going to bounce back and put up a good number,” MacGregor said of Drohan. “I had confidence in him and had confidence in us coming in.”

“I used it as a confidence booster,” Drohan said of the practice round. “We played not so great that day, so I looked at it like we were going to come back and play great today.”

What did South Hadley do to celebrate its strong showing? Play more golf.

The Tigers had to duck out right after the awards ceremony to play in their match against Amherst at Orchards Golf Club – a different location than their home course, Ledges Golf Course. Borque tried to advise the two of them to sit the match out to rest after the long round, but they couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play one of the most pristine courses in Massachusetts.

“I tried to convince them to take a day off, but it’s our one match at the Orchards today, so they didn’t want to miss that,” Borque said.

Frontier earns low Franklin County score

When the Redhawks walked off the 16th green (the hole they began the tournament on), their energy was at an all-time high after Cam Skiffington rolled in a birdie putt to start the day.

But unfortunately, he and his partner, Ryan Cetto, dropped back to even par with a bogey on 17. That was the story all day for Frontier, which shot a 76. Anytime the Hawks made a birdie or put together a solid stretch of holes, they would make a mistake to put a halt to their momentum.

“We started hot,” Skiffington said. “I stuck it close on 17, where we started, and then dropped the putt. But then we gave it right back, and we kind of kept giving strokes back.”

“Yeah, we left a lot of strokes out there,” Cetto added.

Following a poor double bogey they had to settle for on hole No. 3, those two strokes were made up for immediately with an eagle on four.

Cetto hit his tee shot down the middle and had roughly 170 yards left to the green on the par-5. Skiffington hit two shots out-of-bounds, meaning Cetto essentially was playing the hole by himself.

He delivered a dart under pressure, sticking it with a six iron to within 10 feet. And once the putt rolled in, both Cetto and Skiffington felt a little better about their round.

“I knew I had to come up big for the team, so I hit a nice six iron and played a little draw to about eight feet,” Cetto said. “I rolled in the putt and we got those two shots right back.”

But eventually the inconsistency got to them. There were too many holes where they each made bogey or worse to make up for.

“On the front nine, we did a good job of playing tit-fot-tat,” Skiffington added. “If I played bad, he played good, and if he played bad, I played good. But on the back nine, it was kind of the opposite. We either both played a hole well or both played a hole bad.”

Regan finishes second

Hopkins eighth grader Ryley Regan had one of the best individual performances on Monday, and she did it at the perfect time. The Western Mass. Girls Individual Championship took place at Cold Spring as well, where Regan recorded a 78 to take second place.

“My approach shots from around 90 yards felt decently solid today,” Regan said. “I hit my driver decent today and my putting wasn’t horrible either. So that helped.”

Although it was Regan’s first time playing in the event, nerves weren’t an issue for the youngster. She’s played a bunch of 18-hole rounds in her life, so she tried to make Monday seem like any other one of those rounds.

“I’m used to playing 18 holes, so I wasn’t really nervous,” Regan said. “The pin positions were pretty tricky, and the greens were running well,” Regan said. “Overall the course was very beautiful and in great condition.”

Elsewhere, Easthampton’s Amelia Gruber shot a 92, good for sixth place, and South Hadley’s Ryley McMahon shot 94 to take seventh – rounding out local competitors in the girls competition.

Other local scores

The rest of the field walked into the clubhouse filled with frustration, as the difficulty of Cold Spring and the undulation of the course perhaps fatigued the competitors, whom aren’t used to playing 18-hole rounds considering the season consists of nine-hole matches.

Outside of Frontier’s 76, no other Franklin County school posted a sub-80 score. Franklin Tech’s duo of Gabe Mota and William Belval carded an 82. The two seniors felt they hit the ball well, but couldn’t save enough shots around the green. Behind the Eagles was Pioneer Valley. The Panthers sent seniors Brayden Thayer and Ben Werner out on the links, and following an abysmal start that found them 12-over through eight holes, the two buckled down to play the final 10 holes 2-over par – good for an 85.

Juniors Dominik St. Andre and Ethan Heuer represented Athol (87) while seniors Phineus Tuttman and Douglas Wilcox hit the course for Mohawk Trail (90).

For Hampshire County, everyone was chasing the Tigers and Orioles. Northampton received a strong showing from Reilly Fowles and Aiden Keeling-Lococo, with the pair turning in a 3-over round of 75. After Reilly and his brother Galen shot a tournament-record 10-under in 2023, the Blue Devils couldn’t quite get the putters hot enough to repeat that success. Reilly admitted it felt weird without Galen by his side in the Two Ball for the first time in his high school career.

Ashton Lashway and Camden Jarosz put up a score of 80 for Hampshire while Hopkins’ score of 90 came from the duo of Jack Dyjach and Chace Earle.