BRUNSWICK — Maine Amateur champion Matt Hutchins won a battle of 19-year-olds to capture the Maine State Golf Association’s Match Play Championship on Thursday morning at Brunswick Golf Club.
Hutchins, after falling behind Will Kannegieser of Minot on the ninth hole, won the 15th and 16th to finish 1-up after 18 holes.
The top 16 finishers in the Maine Amateur and the top 16 points leaders in the MSGA’s weekly tournaments qualified for the three-day event.
Hutchins, whose family moved to Falmouth during the past year after living the previous 13 years in Sudbury, Massachusetts, was the only golfer to finish under par while winning the 54-hole Maine Amateur in July.
Kannegieser, a two-time junior state champ, got into the 32-man match-play field by finishing 14th in the Maine Amateur.
The lead in the final round changed four times in the first nine holes, with Kannegieser holding a one-hole advantage at the turn.
Hutchins, who will play at UCLA next season after playing last season for Division II Chico State in California, ran into trouble when he hit his tee shot and his provisional out of bounds on the 601-yard, par-5 ninth, conceding the hole to Kannegieser.
“In stroke play it might have hurt me,” said Hutchins, who took a seven on the hole, “but in match play you just lose one hole and you can win the next.”
Hutchins, who plays out of The Woodlands in Falmouth, didn’t lose another hole, firing a 1-under 34 on the back side.
“You just have to get to the holes in the fewest amount of strokes and grind your way through it,” he said.
Hutchins tied it after Kannegieser hooked a tee shot into the large bunker to the left of the par-3, 155-yard 15th, and Hutchins’ tee shot landed in the front edge of the green 70 feet short of the hole. Hutchins managed to putt within a foot of the hole. When Kannegieser tried to get out of the bunker, his ball rolled 80 feet past the hole. He missed the lengthy putt to fall back into a tie.
Hutchins took the lead on the next hole, the par-5, 494-yard 16th. He teed off first and sent the drive 280 yards down the middle of the fairway.
“He used his distance to his advantage today, but I chose for the most part to lay back,” Kannegieser said. “That’s what I’ve been doing all week because I don’t really know where my driver is going.”
Kannegieser, who graduated from Gould Academy in Bethel this spring and will play for Williams College, resorted to his driver on the 16th and it cost him. He sent his tee shot into a grove of pine trees to the left.
“I knew when (Hutchins) hits a tee shot like that he usually ends up with a birdie, so I had to go for it,” he said. “When you have that much space to miss, you might as well go hard. I did and I just missed it left.”
Kannegieser had to punch his ball out of the trees and ended up in the fairway about 75 yards behind Hutchins’ ball. His next shot left him about 90 yards shy of the green, and Hutchins’ second shot put him within chipping range. Hutchins birdied the hole to take the lead for good.
“He played great,” Kannegieser said. “I was ready to go out and battle in the match and he came out on top. I can’t really complain. I played well and I had my chances.”
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