MIDWAY — The Dixie Flyers admit that even though they had an inexperienced golf team going into this season, the expectations were still high.

After all, the school had won three consecutive state golf titles — two straight in 3A and last season in 4A. Also, just because the Flyers had several inexperienced players didn't mean they were not good. Dixie's younger guys are talented. But with the load of stars the Flyers had last season the youngsters just had to wait for their turn.

Perhaps a little bit of pressure from the high expectations, a touch of being a bit on the inexperienced side, and a couple of hours of strong winds at Soldier Hollow State Park Golf Course on Thursday, combined to make winning a fourth straight state golf championship a little more nerve-racking than the Flyers had hoped.

Still, when the dust had settled late Thursday afternoon, and even though the Flyers didn't have their best day, they played well enough in Round 1 and well enough down the stretch to hold off a strong charge from two Region 6 foes — Cottonwood and East — to head back south with another championship trophy. Dixie finished at 622, Cottonwood 633 and East 634.

"I think this is important for these kids because they can go back home and say 'we're still good, and we're still here,"' Dixie coach Eron Deming said.

Leading the way for Dixie was sophomore McCoy Willey, who fired a final-round 3-over 75 which gave him a two-day total of 149 to win medalist honors by one shot over Olympus senior Adam Mahas. Willey was the only Flyer to break 80 on Thursday as the team's final-round 321 was only fourth best. Andrew Huff shot exactly 80, with Connor Van Gilder posting an 82 and AJ Thomas an 84. Dallas Draper's score didn't count on Thursday, but his 78 on Wednesday did.

"I'm really happy with the way I played today, but I'm even happier that we won as a team," Willey said.

Actually, Cottonwood and East played much better than Dixie on Thursday, but started the round too far behind to catch the Flyers. The Colts had a day's best 309 and the Leopards a 311. Thursday's two low rounds were posted by Cottonwood's Adam Ostler and Tanner Tregeagle, who shot 74 each. The Leopards had four players — Tanner Tew, Rick Perry, Pekka Vanninen and Remmington Schultz — all shoot a final-round score in the 70s.

Snow Canyon began the day in second place, 14 shots behind Dixie, but the Warriors struggled to a final-round 322 and finished in fourth.

The medalist race was actually much closer than the team battle. Mahas, the first-round leader after firing a 73 Wednesday on the Gold Course, was cruising along Thursday on the Silver Course at even par until he reached the par-3 15th. There, he hit his tee shot in the water, then, after a drop, four-putted for a quadruple-bogey seven. He also made bogey on his final hole.

Meanwhile, Willey was finishing strong. He was 4-over par until he knocked a sand wedge stiff on 16 and made birdie, and then parred in from there.

"I knew, with the conditions, that I wasn't going to have to shoot a great score to win it," he said "So I told myself just to stick to my game and make a lot of pars."

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