By Tom Robinson, NEPASportsNation.com
GREENFIELD TWP. – Robert Munley’s chip extended the match.
Cade Kelleher’s long putt changed the outlook.
Robby Lucas then came up with the birdie that allowed Abington Heights to take advantage of both those preceding shots and pull out a sudden-death playoff victory over North Pocono after the teams had ended 18 holes of the Lackawanna League Class 3A Division final in a 4½-4½ tie Thursday at Elkview Country Club.
Playing in the last group, Lucas made a two-putt birdie on 1 to give Abington Heights the advantage in two of the three, one-hole better-ball matches that continued the match as the playoff format to break the tie.
“I hit a good drive,” Lucas said. “I think I had 210 yards. I knew that 5-iron was enough, downhill and down wind. I just trusted it, hit and it wound up being the number and I two-putted for birdie.”
Three events each helped set up Lucas for the winning putt that sent Abington Heights into Tuesday’s District 2 Class 3A championship match against Crestwood.
The Comets and Trojans were tied at 4-4 when Lucas and Munley came up 18 also tied with Brady Mapes and Matthew Seidita in what became the deciding better-ball match in regulation play.
Mapes used three birdies early in the back nine to help erase what had been a five-hole Abington Heights lead in the match and as the players surrounded the 18th green, North Pocono appeared to have the edge.
Munley took that away. Overlooking the 18th green from near the first tee in three after having his second shot hit a tree and go backward, Munley nearly holed out an extremely challenging chip, leaving it 2on the lip for a tap-in bogey that wound up being enough to halve the hole and extend the match.
As Lucas and Munley stood on the first fairway awaiting their second shots on the par-5, North Pocono again had the undefeated Comets on the ropes.
North Pocono had won the first of three sudden-death, better-ball matches to finish a one-hole playoff and seemed even in the second, which put pressure on Lucas and Munley just to keep Abington Heights alive.
That’s when Kelleher rolled in a 35-foot, downhill, bending putt for birdie as his teammates watched from the fairway.
“I didn’t know if it was for eagle or for birdie, but I could figure out that they won after the other team picked up,” Lucas said.
Lucas had one view of the biggest putt of the match. Kelleher had another.
“I had the same point previously when I played the first hole,” Kelleher said. “It was not great. I blew it 30 feet by.
“On that one, it was good to get redemption and make it when it mattered most.”
That putt flipped control of the match. Now Lucas and Munley, in slightly better position than their North Pocono opponents, had a chance to end the match if they could win the hole and they set their second-shot strategy accordingly.
Munley hit first, playing it safe by setting up a wedge into the green from short to the left, opening the door for Lucas to fire away.
The only one in the foursome to reach the green in two, Lucas also came up with the only birdie in the group to close out the match.
“I didn’t feel like it had gotten away until hole 17,” Lucas said. “Same thing, par-5, I was on in two, but I made par.
“So, I knew if I was on in two again, I couldn’t make par. I had to make birdie.”
Kelleher and partner Luke Swank had combined to take all three points in the second foursome during the regulation 18 holes. Kelleher won his singles match, 6 and 4, and they won better ball, 6 and 5.
Lucas also won big in singles, 6 and 5.
Alex Wilson and Reilly McCullough swept the three points in the first match for North Pocono. Mapes won his singles point and split in better-ball.
The Trojans tied the Comets in one of two regular-season meetings.
MORE COVERAGE
For full results from each point of the Abington Heights-North Pocono match as well as the other league finals from Thursday, see: Division championship golf results – NEPA Sports Nation.
