317 yds & 14 inches — Juniors shine at Trumbull CC drive, chip night

The ‘Joe” Dickey Electric Greatest Golfer Juniors paused Thursday night from the championship golf play to crown some skills champs at Trumbull Country Club. Twenty players competed in Greatest’s first-ever long drive/pin shot competition sponsored by OnCore Golf, and play was stellar. Home-course hero Samantha Calderone of Warren JFK High School won the first title of the night in long drive. She had a qualifier round length of 239 yards, which trailed Canfield High School’s Jackie Kinnick’s 254-yard bomb. But in the pressure-packed one-on-one knockout round with each player hitting two alternating shots, Calderone found the grid at 219 yards for the win. In the boys division, McDonald’s Michael Porter and Alliance’s Blake Hood bested a beefy bunch of shooters all going over 290 yards in the qualifier round. Their two best shots tied at 301 yards each. In the one-on-one, 2-shot knockout round, Hood crushed his second shot 317 yards, leaving Porter one last shot. Porter — having said before Hood’s number was posted, that anything over 305 is beyond him, did a “Happy Gilmore” try and bounded that one 100 yards down the No. 10 fairway. In the pin shot shootout playing from 140 yards, Beaver Local’s Luke Eyster won the boys division. He parked 3 qualifier shots an aggregate 36 feet from the pin. Then in his one-on-one shot vs. Porter, Eyster went inside of 10 feet for the winning shot. The ladies closed in dramatic fashion. Hickory’s McKenzie Gustas bested all boys and girls with a 3-shot aggregate distance of just 21 feet in the qualifier round. Mooney’s Jayne Bernard came in second, but posted the closest shot of the day, rolling up to 14 inches. In their one-on-one, 2-ball knockout round, Gustas zipped her second shot backward off the first cut to rest it 8 feet from the cup. Bernard — with a do-or-die final shot of the event — bounced in from the lower left and rolled up to the pin — resting 4 inches inside of Gustas’ shot for the win. The players all smacked OnCore Golf balls in the event.