The Pinewood golf team captured it second consecutive SCISA AAA state championship on Tuesday in Myrtle Beach.
The Panthers have now won the state championship three of the past four years.
This year’s victory was by the largest margin ever, 12 shots, but Pinewood didn’t exactly cruise to the championship.
“The past two times we won were by three and four shots, respectively,” Pinewood coach Greg Baechtle said.
“We felt this year if we could play well the first day we could separate ourselves from the other teams and not have as much pressure on the second day. Part of our plan worked; we did play very well the first day, but Porter Gaud also played well and we wound up with just a three-shot lead.”
The Panthers shot a 1-under-par 287 on the first day. Austin Cody led the way with a 67, followed by Richard Hubbard (69), Kamito Hirai (73), Lushen Evans (78) and Doug Chickarello (79).
“Porter Gaud has an excellent team and we were paired with them the first day so I got to watch them play,” Baechtle said. “They caught a lot of good breaks, rolled in some long putts and I think even they exceeded their expectations.”
On Tuesday, the Panthers found themselves again paired with the Cyclones.
“I told the team before we played that while Porter is a good team I thought they got a lot of good breaks on Monday and that if we went out and played well again we should be ok,” Baechtle said.
As it turned out, the Panthers played even better the second day, turning in a combined three-under-par 285 score. Cody and Hirai led the team with 70’s; Evans shot an even par 72; Hubbard added a 73; and Chickarello finished at 77. The Cyclones were not able to match their score of the first day and shot 294.
The Panthers wound up with a two-day total of 572 to top last year’s performance by 28 shots. The Cyclones finished at 584 to capture runner-up honors and Hilton Head Prep placed third.
 “We expected the scores to be lower this year; the course was in great condition, but I didn’t think we could shoot as low as we did,” Baechtle said.
“I believe this might be a record for SCISA.  Back about six or seven years ago, Porter had a great team, but I don’t ever recall any of those teams shooting under par for the two-day event. I’ve been coaching golf for nine years now and I’ve been to a lot of tournaments in that time, seen a lot of very good teams and I cannot recall a better result than we had this week. As has been typical of our team all along, they responded well to pressure. They came out on Tuesday morning and applied the pressure to the Cyclones right from the beginning and by the time they finished the front nine we had moved our lead from three shots to 10 and all but effectively ending any hope of a comeback by the Cyclones.”
In addition to the team championship, Cody again won the individual championship with a seven-under-par 137 total. Hubbard finished third at 142 and Hirai finished fifth at 143.  The team will graduate one of its top players, but Baechtle is optimistic about next season.
“We lose Kamito for next year, but I think Doug will be ready to step up for us,” he said. “While I’m not sure one player can fill Kamito’s shoes, I would expect with a little improvement from a couple of the players we should have a team capable of challenging for a championship again next year.”