From Staff Reports
The Daily Citizen
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Chatsworth’s Chase Jones shares fifth place with five other players after the first day of the Georgia State Golf Asso-ciation’s Junior Sectional Challenge Match.
Jones shot an opening-round 79 in the boys 16-17 division on Monday at Hawkinsville’s Southern Hills Country Club, seven strokes behind leader Levi Nix of LaFayette. Tyler Simpson, another Chats-worth golfer, turned in an 80 and is in a three-way tie for 11th in the division.
In the boys 14-15 division, Chatsworth’s Colby Hipp is tied with two others for eighth after shooting a 79. Albany’s Jacob Joiner set the pace with a 72, one shot ahead of Savannah’s Chris Sells.
In nine-hole competition, Dalton’s Davis Smith is in a five-way tie for fourth place after opening with a 40, three shots off co-leaders Austin Fulton of Villa Rica and Luukas Alakulppi of Valdosta.
The Junior Sectional Challenge Match is a statewide competition that brings together the top performers from the summer-long GSGA Junior Sec-tional Program. Partici-pants earned the opportunity to compete and represent their section in the tournament by accumulating points in their section’s qualifying events.
Each of the seven geographic sections sends their top four point-earners from each boys age division, the top three from each girls 14-17 division and the top two from the girls 12-13 and 11-and-under divisions to the match.
The team winner, or winning section, is determined by cumulative points earned based on order of finish in the various age divisions during each round.
The Northwest, for which local golfers are competing, holds the lead with 33.86 points entering today’s final round. The Southwest is second with 33.32 points.
