Members of the Butler County Community College men’s golf team are, top row, from left, Brett Bartholow and Carter Blystone. Second row, from left, Gannon Brown and Johnnie Mikos. Third row, from left, Maddox Shaffer and Colt Sprankle.
(Butler, PA) The Butler County Community College men’s golf team this week has a chance to capture the program’s 15th Western Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference championship since 1972 and its players, the Pioneers’ seventh individual crown.
BC3 will face the Community College of Allegheny County and Westmoreland County Community College in the two-round, season-ending tournament Thursday and Friday at the par-72 Willowbrook Country Club in Apollo.
Brett Bartholow, Carter Blystone, Gannon Brown, Johnnie Mikos, Maddox Shaffer and Colt Sprankle will represent BC3 in seeking the WPCC team championship and will compete with opponents for the WPCC individual title.
Jacob Marquardt, a Seneca Valley High School graduate, in 2024 became BC3’s most-recent WPCC individual champion.
Sprankle – who with Bartholow, Blystone and Mikos is a first-year player – had BC3’s lowest score twice this fall and was a tri-match medalist once.
Blystone had BC3’s lowest score four times and three top-three finishes.
Mikos and Shaffer each had BC3’s lowest score once.
BC3, Allegheny County and Westmoreland County ended the regular season Friday at the par-72 Windber Country Club in Salix with their highest-scoring tri-match of the fall.
The lowest four individual scores from each squad are counted to determine a team total.
The three squads combined for 1,003 strokes Friday, the most since a collective 998 on Sept. 24 at Lake Arthur Golf Club near Butler.
Allegheny County placed first Friday with a 327, Westmoreland County was second with a 335 and BC3 third with a 341.
The top 10 players with the lowest scoring averages who competed in at least four tri-matches this fall are, 1. Kayden Lyons, 75.2, Allegheny County; 2. Noah Dubyak, 78, Westmoreland County; 3. Gunnar Shoop, 78.6, Westmoreland County; 4. Connor Jacobsen, 79.3, Allegheny County; 5. Sprankle, 80, BC3; 6. Blystone, 80.3, BC3; 7. Shaun Kovac, 81.5, Westmoreland County; 8. Brown, 82.5, BC3; 9. Henry Simcox, 82.7, Allegheny County; and 10. Mikos, 84.3, BC3.
Lyons was medalist twice and placed in the top three in four other tri-matches. Dubyak was medalist in the past two tri-matches with a 71 and a 75, his lowest scores this fall. Shoop placed second twice in tri-matches and finished third once.
The four lowest individual scores in each of the two WPCC championship rounds are added to determine the team score.
Shaffer averaged an 84.3 in three tri-matches and Bartholow, a 90 in five.
Sprankle is a graduate of Knoch; Blystone and Brown, of Butler; Mikos, of Cardinal Mooney, Youngstown; Shaffer, of Armstrong; and Bartholow, of Connellsville.
BC3’s other WPCC individual champions are Xander Downing in 2023, Troy Loughry in 2022 and 2021, Anthony Lewis in 2017 and Chris Kier in 2014.