Ryan beats Lofland in title match to repeat as winner of GAP Junior Boys' Championship at Overbrook

    Having survived a really tough test in Wednesday morning’s semifinals at Overbrook Golf Club, Josh Ryan, playing out of The 1912 Club, wasn’t about to let a second straight Golf Association of Philadelphia Junior Boys’ Championship slip away.

   The 17-year-old Norristown resident did indeed finish the job, claiming a 4 and 3 victory over recent Conestoga graduate Morgan Lofland to become the first repeat winner of the GAP Junior Boys’ Championship since Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Robert Galbreath Jr. accomplished the feat by capturing the title in 2007 and again in 2008.

   “It’s a little surreal,” Ryan, who was home-schooled by Commonwealth Connections Academy but represented Norristown High on the golf course, told the GAP website. “It hasn’t really sunken in yet. It’s pretty amazing. It’s hard because every match is different.

   “You have to play good golf every single round. This morning, I wasn’t feeling it as much and almost lost. So, I wasn’t even thinking about winning this again.”

   It was the 107^th edition of GAP’s premier junior event. It has to be one of the oldest junior championships in the country and has been the launching pad for the careers of countless local golf standouts.

   Ryan, who will continue his golf career at powerful Liberty, was in big trouble when he was 2-down with two holes to to play in his morning semifinal against Wilmington Country Club’s Matthew Homer, a junior at Tatnall School. Perhaps drawing on his experience in winning the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship last summer, Ryan found a way to win.

   Ryan dropped in a clutch 18-footer for birdie on the 359-yard, par-4 17^th hole and then won the 18^th hole to send the match to extra holes. At the 21^st hole, Overbrook’s 210-yard, par-3 third hole, Ryan drilled a 5-iron to four feet and converted the birdie try to earn his spot in the final opposite Lofland.

   The 18-year-old Lofland, who will join Greg Nye’s Penn State program at the end of the summer, was really good for three days at Overbrook. A two-time Central League co-medalist while at Conestoga, Lofland was the qualifying medalist Monday with a 2-under 68 over the 6,299-yard, par-70 Overbrook layout. While Ryan was struggling to get by Homer, Lofland blitzed Jack Tarzy of Medford Lakes Country Club, 8 and 6, in the other semifinal.

   In the final, though, it was Lofland who ran into a buzzsaw. Ryan played 4-under golf in the first 10 holes.

   Ryan hit it close at both the 364-yard, par-4 second hole and at the 431-yard, par-4 fourth hole and made the birdie putts to grab an early 2-up lead.

   Even when Lofland hit it to 10 feet at the 466-yard, par-4 sixth hole, it wasn’t enough. Ryan drained his 18-foot birdie putt and when Lofland dropped his birdie try, it was only good enough to halve the hole.

   Lofland got a little too aggressive with a birdie putt on the 11^th hole and it led to a three-putt bogey as he fell to 3-down. Ryan won the next two holes with pars and Lofland was suddenly 5-down with five to play. Lofland staved off the inevitable by winning the 14^th hole, but Ryan closed him out on the 15^th.

   The victory was also a major step for Ryan toward a second straight GAP Junior Player of the Year award.

   Lofland nearly matched the accomplishment of another Conestoga standout, Ryan Tall, who recently completed his junior season at Lafayette. Tall reached the semifinals of the 2018 BMW Philadelphia Amateur at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club and followed it up with a victory in the GAP Junior Boys at Blue Bell Country Club.

   Lofland lost in the Philly Am semifinals to eventual winner Conor McGrath last week at Cedarbrook Country Club and came up just short of following it up with a win in the GAP Junior Boys.

   Ryan and Lofland were two of my favorite guys to run into on the high school postseason trail in recent years. I was there in 2017 at Golden Oaks Golf Club when the two freshmen earned a trip to the PIAA Class AAA Championship for the first time.

   You have to be a pretty good player to make it to the state tournament as a ninth-grader and they were. But neither of them rested on their early accomplishments. Both guys kept getting better. The two players who met in the final of the GAP Junior Boys’ Championship Wednesday at Overbrook are vastly better players than those two kids who made it to states nearly four years ago.

   They will keep getting better.

   Lofland gave Conestoga a sweep the day Tall won at Blue Bell in 2018 when Lofland captured the title in the first flight.

   Matthew Normand of Laurel Creek Country Club pulled out a victory in Wednesday’s first-flight final, outlasting Corey Haydu of Spring Mill Country Club in 20 holes.

   Normand, a junior at Rancocas Valley Regional High School, was a member of the Delaware I team, based at Chester County’s Hartefeld National Golf Club, that earned a trip to the 2018 PGA Junior League Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. Haydu, a recent graduate of La Salle who will continue his golf career at Gettysburg, had lost in the championship flight’s title match to Ryan a year ago.

   Normand reached the first-flight final with a 1-up victory over Saucon Valley Country Club’s Evan Eichenlaub, a junior at Moravian Academy, in Wednesday morning’s semifinals. Haydu also pulled out a 1-up victory over the Country Club of York’s Thomas Lynch, a senior at Scranton Prep, in the other semifinal.