STATE COLLEGE \u2014 Cole Powell never waivered. The Scranton Prep sophomore played two days of solid, steady, flawless golf. As a result, he is a state champion.<\/p>\n
Powell shot 3-under-par 69 in Tuesday\u2019s second round to finish with a 7-under 137 and capture the Class 2A title at the PIAA Golf Championships at the Penn State University Golf Courses. He defeated a hard-charging Anthony LaBoda of Fairview by two strokes. LaBoda used two eagles and four birdies to shoot 7-under for the day.<\/p>\n
Luke Sikora of Greensburg Salem, who began the day one shot behind Powell in second, finished third, three shots behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m feeling a lot of relief and a lot of excitement,\u201d Powell said.\u00a0\u201cI played some very solid golf the last two days. Hit a lot of greens, hit a lot of fairways, which definitely helped. Anytime I missed a green, I got up-and-down about 90 percent of the time, which definitely was one of the biggest parts to getting me to where I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scranton Prep teammate Ben Boyanoski shot a 2-over 74 to wind up with a 4-over 148 and finish ninth, good enough for a state medal. The top 10 plus ties receive medals.<\/p>\n
Two girls from District 2 also earned medals.<\/p>\n
In Class 2A, Arden Brunn from Holy Redeemer finished ninth with a 12-over 156 (79-77).\u00a0North Pocono\u2019s Lyla Jones placed seventh in Class 3A with 6-over 150 (76-74).<\/p>\n
\u201cCole played great. I think he handled himself really well out there,\u201d Boyanoski said. \u201cI\u2019m really happy for him. He\u2019s put in a lot of hard work and it finally showed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing the White Course, Powell got off to another good start. In Monday\u2019s first round, he birdied two of the first three holes. On Tuesday, he birdied three of the first four holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat really got my confidence going and helped the rest of the round,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
His lone mistake came when he bogeyed the par-4 No. 9. But he responded with a birdie on the par-5 No. 10, then parred out the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cNine is a tough hole; a short par-4 a little to the right with a bunker coming to the left side of the fairway,\u201d Powell said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get a ball in play. The green\u2019s tight with a lot of slope. It\u2019s tough to judge the speed. I didn\u2019t hit a good putt and missed the next putt for par. I was frustrated making bogey, but the next hole I bounced back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, LaBoda was keeping the pressure on with his play. Powell said he learned about LaBoda\u2019s rise up the standings on hole No. 11. Boyanoski, who played in the same foursome with LaBoda one hole ahead of Powell, said he thought that was a good thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that helped Cole. When you\u2019re playing good, it\u2019s better to keep your foot on the gas. When you let up is when you make mistakes,\u201d Boyanoski said. \u201cI think someone chasing him helped keep his mind sharp and his focus heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Powell: \u201cI knew he was coming at me. That definitely put something in me to keep on firing and finish out strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking a two-shot lead to the par-5 No. 18, Powell stuck his third shot about eight feet from the hole. He two-putted for par to secure the title and set off a celebration with Scranton Prep teammates, parents, family and friends looking on.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing up 18, I was really just thinking about getting on the green and two-putting,\u201d Powell said. \u201cI wanted to make the (birdie) putt obviously, but I wanted to win, so I decided to lag it up and tap it in for par.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyanoski, meanwhile, had five bogeys and one birdie in his first 10 holes. But in his final eight holes, he had six pars and birdies on Nos. 11 and 15 to put himself in position top earn a medal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal to start the day obviously was to come from behind and win,\u201d Boyanoski said. \u201cAfter a rough front nine with a few poor shots and bad breaks, my goal switched to just medaling. I was following (Powell) how he was doing and I just forgot about how I was playing. I was able to shoot 35 on the back and finish with 74. When I looked at the leaderboard and saw I was top 10, I was excited.<\/p>\n
\u201cI birdied 15 and that kind of got me going for the last three holes. I missed good opportunities on 16, 17 and 18, but I was still able to sneak into the top 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Powell, Boyanoski and the rest of their Scranton Prep teammates will try to repeat as Class 2A state champs in the PIAA Team Championships. Abington Heights boys and girls will also be competing in Class 3A, while Tunkhannock is in the Class 2A girls field.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: October 21, 2025 at 5:29 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATE COLLEGE \u2014 Cole Powell never waivered. The Scranton Prep sophomore played two days of solid, steady, flawless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179,726],"class_list":{"0":"post-10621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}