By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
The 2026 boys golf season has flown by and is leaning towards the postseason, but first the 10 teams from the Southern Hills Athletic Conference gathered at Hillsboro Elks for the first round of the annual SHAC Tournament. The tourney will look a bit different this year, at press time it had been reduced to three rounds instead of the usual four after last week’s extreme heat forced the cancellation of Round Two on September 3 at Friendly Meadows.
Whatever rounds are yet to be finished the 2026 tournament has become a race for second place as the Lynchburg Mustangs totally dominated play in Round One on August 25, looking to become back-to-back champions. The Mustangs placed four of the top six golfers on the leader board- Nolan Wilkin- 38, Kristian Beachy-40, Jackson West- 41 and Aiden Bene- 41. In the team standings, Lynchburg already owns a commanding 17-stroke lead over North Adams, West Union and Whiteoak, all of whom were tied for second place after the first nine holes.
A pair of Adams County golfers also were tied for that third place slot, both shooting 41, Manchester’s Bryce Young and West Union’s Alex Dillow. The top 15 golfers in the tournament will receive All-Conference honors and besides Young and Dillow, that group after just one round includes Manchester’s Brayden Palmer (42), North Adams’ Carsyn Raines (43), North Adams’ Caleb Brown (43), Peebles’ Cooper Meade (43), Manchester’s Luke Rigdon (44), and West Union’s Thomas Barnhart (44). With that many golfers bunched up in the top 15, those rankings are almost certain to change over the final 18 holes.
Round Two of the SHAC Tournament will be played on September 15 at Snow Hill and the final round (still subject to change) will be September 17 at Buckeye Hills.
Individual Scores-Round One:
North Adams: Carsyn Raines- 43, Caleb Brown- 43, Cash Hupp- 45, Colt Ward-46, Jace Michael- 52
West Union- Alex Dillow- 41, Thomas Barnhart- 44, Samuel Griffis- 46, Ethan Caldwell- 46, Landon McIntosh- 49
Manchester- Bryce Young- 41, Brayden Palmer- 42, Luke Rigdon- 44, Kanton Butt- 51, Carson Inman- 59
Peebles- Cooper Meade- 43, Calen Vogler- 45, Gage Bennington- 48, Josh McClary- 48, KJ McClary- 50
Team Scores- Round One: Lynchburg- 160, North Adams- 177, West Union- 177, Whiteoak- 177, Manchester- 178, Peebles- 184, Fairfield- 190, Ripley- 205, Eastern Brown- 216, Fayetteville- 216