Marriotts Ridge's Mejia, Howard's Cherry run away with District V golf titles

With her main focus being on what's ahead at states, Cherry said her round was all about keeping the positive vibes going after winning the county championship tournament by 15 shots.

"I just tried to stay focused on one shot at a time so I could gain momentum going into states. I'm really excited for it this year," she said.

Cherry got off to a little bit of a slow start, shooting three-over par on her first nine holes, but as the temperatures heated up, so did her game. Her late stretch of birdies helped her finish one-under on the back nine and officially put the field in her rearview mirror.

With Cherry serving as a frontrunner, and Abrams not far behind her, that set the stage for the Lions to make a little team history as well. Shashank Gupta (80) and Brett Pool (90) combined with the girls to post the score that not only qualified for states, but outpaced everyone else in the classification.

"It's a remarkable feeling to be where we are today. I mean we came out here with the goal of just qualifying and we honestly weren't even sure how that would go," Howard coach Joshua McGoun said. "But to hear that we were the 3A/4A champs, I just couldn't believe it. The players have worked so hard, though, and really invested themselves into the game and the team, and they totally earned this."

While Howard found itself in uncharted territory, Marriotts Ridge is no stranger to District Championship hardware. Each of the last four years, the Mustangs have won a district team title on the way to earning a 1A/2A state championship as well.

This year, with a line-up led by a trio of seniors, the Mustangs are looking as strong as ever.

"Sure, I came out here trying to win individually today, but big picture it's not about that — it's about the team. And we came out and put up a really good score today," said Courtney. "This is exactly how we want to be playing going into states and I think we're all looking forward to going there and trying to continue this thing."

Courtney's round included three bogies and three birdies, along with 12 pars. A handful of missed putts kept him from shooting even better, but Courtney was still four shots clear of third-place finisher Timothy Glaser of Southern.

Overall there were eight boys individuals outside of the teams that met the qualifying score of 82 to advance to states. Included in that group were Howard County players Derek Gold of River Hill (79), Kenneth Chaplain of Centennial (81), Hayden Mikk of Glenelg (81) and Branden Nguyen (81) of Atholton.

On the girls side, individual qualifiers were Centennial's Isabel Trojillo and Howard's Harper Lurie (91).

But the story of the day was undoubtedly Mejia, who won his first postseason title since winning the county tournament as a freshman. He stayed out of trouble, missing only a pair of fairways, and his approach shots were on target the entire way.

That left everything else up to the putter, which was pouring the ball into the hole.

"I putted really well, especially on my front nine … I was able to make some 15-footers here and there for birdie so I guess the hole felt big," Mejia said.