High school boys golf: Corner Canyon takes back-to-back 6A state title, Lone Peak’s Kihei Akina has record breaking tournament

The last decade of Utah high school golf has largely been dominated by Lone Peak. The Knights won nine state championships between 2013-2022 and had one of their golfers win the individual championship four times between 2018-2022. However, last year’s Lone Peak team was dethroaned both as a team and on the individual championship by Corner Canyon and the Chargers’ Bowen Mauss.
This year, the Chargers trailed behind Lone Peak by three strokes after day one. However, in day two Corner Canyon outplayed the Knights by 10 strokes to take its back-to-back state championship with a team score of 538. Lone Peak finished with 545.
“These guys worked so hard,” said Corner Canyon head coach Derek Fox. “Lone Peak has such a good team down there and they make us get better. These boys were ready for today, they said last night they were ready to go and this was our best round of the year. They picked a great day to do it.”
Corner Canyon saw huge improvements all around from day one. The Chargers ended day one with only two players in the top 10, but improved that number to four on Tuesday.
The only thing that sligtly soured the day for Corner Canyon was losing the close individual race between defending medalist Bowen Mauss and two-time medalist Kihei Akina. The scoring margin between Mauss and Akina was razor thin, with Akina entering day two with only a single stroke lead.
In day two, Akina grew his lead to a two-stroke lead on hole two as Akina parred and Mauss had his only bogey of the tournament. Hole eight turned things in favor of Mauss as he birdied and Akina Bogeyed to even the score.
It stayed within a stroke or two through most of day two, but Akina had a monster run in the final five holes to pull away. Akina birdied on holes 14, 15, 16 and 18 to secure his third individual title.
“Me and Bowen, we were in a battle today,” said Akina. “It was cool to see him playing so well and it was really back and forth until that 14th hole where I kind of went on a run there. I’ve come up short a lot this year, so I wanted this one really badly and I went out and got it.”
Akina is just the fourth high school golfer in state history to claim three individual titles, the first to do so since 1999. But Akina’s record-breaking performance didn’t end there. He set a new state record with a 36-hole score of 127, surpassing the previous mark of 128, set by none other than Akina himself in the 2022 state championship.
Despite the record breaking day, it was a mix of excitement and disapointment for Akina, as Lone Peak once again lost to Corner Canyon in the team championship.
“It feels good to get some redemption,” Akina said. “I’m happy to get this one, but I’m a little bit sad for the team. It feels a little bit different without the team victory, but this is still cool for sure.”
Corner Canyon’s Mauss ended his 36-holes with a score of 130, which is the fourth best in state history. While it wasn’t enough to win this years individual title, Mauss still ended his high school carrer with one individual title and back-to-back state titles for his school.
“It’s been really fun, but more important than the trophies is the memories I made with them,” Mauss said. “The biggest part of it is we’ve all been playing together a long time and we got along really well. We have really good team chemistry and I think that helped us throughout the year with wanting to play well for each other.”
At Riverbend Golf Course (par 72)
Full Leaderboard
Final team scores
1. Corner Canyon, 538
2. Lone Peak, 545
3. Herriman, 570
4. American Fork, 581
5. Riverton, 586
6. Farmington, 595
6. Fremont, 595
8. Davis, 597
Individual results (Top 20)
127 – Kihei Akina, Sr., Lone Peak
130 – Bowen Mauss, Sr., Corner Canyon
134 – Ben Wilson, Sr., Corner Canyon
136 – Ty Brady, Sr., Corner Canyon
137 – Ryder Huish, Fr., Lone Peak
138 – Elliot Bond, Sr., Herriman
138 – Blake Brown, Fr., Lone Peak
139 – Ty Anderson, Sr., Corner Canyon
139 – JJ Tomsick, Sr., Herriman
140 – Max Landon, Sr., Davis
140 – Jaxon Erickson, Jr., Riverton
140 – Gavin Van Woerkom, Sr., American Fork
140 – Austin Jones, Jr., Lone Peak
142 – Tyse Boman, Jr., Corner Canyon
143 – Jack Davis, Jr., American Fork
144 – Bronx Campbell, Sr., Mountain Ridge
145 – Chase Randall, Jr., Layton
146 – Cooper Meyer, Sr., Corner Canyon
147 – Jace Nielsen, Sr., Fremont
147 – Jack Summerhays, Fr., Farmington
147 – D’Aiddas Notoa, So., Lehi
147 – Braxten Ziegenbusch, Sr., Herriman