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Sports Oakville Beaver SPORTS EDITOR:JONKUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 432) Fax 905-337-5571 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2012 couple of weeks, I've been hitting my driver well." The driver would spend most of the day in the bag at the GHAC championships, though. On the second hole, Capern hit his drive through the fairway and ended up behind a tree. At that point, he changed his strategy. "It's such a tight course. It's not a very long, though," he said, "so I took a lot of irons and three woods off the tee." Still Capern was not happy about being five-over at one point. "I certainly didn't think I was going to win," he said. "I didn't think five-over would qualify (for OFSAA), much less win the tournament." But Capern started to hear from coaches and fellow players that everyone was struggling with the course. Sitting at plus-6 through 16 holes, he figured he needed to finish with a pair of birdies to have any chance. He just missed birdie on 17 but made his birdie putt on 18 to finish at 75. Having turned in the lowest score, Capern just needed to wait for the final two groups to finish. When they did, he had a two-stroke victory over Thompkins, who edged out Piper by a stroke for the second individual OFSAA berth. The 17-year-old knows it will be a tough field at OFSAA. He said he will draw on his experience of playing at the Ontario Amateur and Ontario Junior Championships, where he teed it up with likes of Albin Choi and Mackenzie Hughes, two members of Canada's national team. He also hopes a strong showing will help secure a golf scholarship. He has talked to a couple of schools in Florida but has no firm offers yet. And with his first -- or second, depending how you look at it -- win under his belt, Capern said he'll go into OFSAA (Oct. 11-12 at Twenty Valley Golf and Country Club in Vineland) with confidence. "It's certainly a boost," Capern said. "You always want to go in thinking you can win and it was certainly a goal of mine. I just want to go into OFSAA now looking for a good finish." Holy Trinity's Matt Capern records first win at GHAC championship By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLEBEAVERSTAFF Matt Capern had just turned in the best round of the day, a two-under 69 at Hidden Lake Golf Club, but there was one nagging question to be answered: had he just won his first tournament? The Halton golf championship had been contested over two days at two different courses, five days apart. Capern had finished tied for third overall in the Halton championship -- which is where the dilemma came in. Was it one event? Or was it two separate events combined to determine a champion? The Grade 12 Holy Trinity student solved the problem the best way he could. Five days after the Halton championship concluded, Capern shot a 75 at the Beverly Golf and Country Club Monday to claim the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference (GHAC) title by two strokes over Bishop Tonnos' Taylor Thompkins. The win now has Capern headed to the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Association (OFSAA) championship for the first time. "I knew going into GHAC, I had the ability to qualify for OFSAA," he said. "And it turned out I was able to do it." Just two weeks ago, that seemed very unlikely. Capern opened the Halton championships Sept. 21 with a round of 84 at the Wyldewood Golf and Country Club. That left him 10 shots back with 22 golfers between himself and the leaders. With only six individual spots up for grabs in Perfect timing the GHAC tournament, Capern's chances of moving on looked pretty grim. "I knew I had to have a pretty good round to move on," he said. Capern was even-par at the turn and then made a couple of birdies early on the back nine to put himself in position to advance. When he finished the day with a 69 -- two better than Christ the King's Joel Albany, who claimed the Halton title with a two-day total of 145 -- he had managed to climb past 20 golfers to finish third. Abbey Park's Greg Piper finished second at 149 while King's Christian's Kyle MacDonald finished tied with Capern at 153. Max Raike (155) of White Oaks and Austin Jones (157) of King's Christian also secured spots in GHAC field. "I started off well," Capern said. "The last Haynes caps strong season with second-place finish at Haltons Like Matt Capern on the boys' side, Annika Haynes turned in a strong round in the second leg of the Halton golf champoinship. The Iroquois Ridge student fired a four-under round of 67 at Hidden Lake Golf Club in Burlington to finish second in the girls' division. Ironically, it was a 79 in the opening round, on her home course at the Wyldewood Golf and Country Club, that took her out of contention. An 11-shot deficit proved to be too much to overcome as Christ the King's Samantha Spencer took the title with a two-round total of 146. While she qualified for OFSAA, Haynes has opted not to play. Haynes' showing in the high school season capped what has been a strong summer for the 16-year-old. Haynes reached the final of the Golf Association of Ontario junior girls' match play in August. Haynes, seeded fourth, won three matches to reach the final. After a dominating 7&6 victory in the quarter-finals, she beat the tournament's top seed, Sophie Kitchen, 4&3 in the semifinals. It took No. 2 Meghan Bennett to end her win streak, 3&2, in the final. The following week she finished tied for second at the Graham Cooke Invitational at the Domaine ChâteauBromont in Quebec with rounds of 75 and 77. Earlier in the month, Haynes finished eighth at the Ontario Summer Games, which also served as the Ontario juvenile girls' championship. She carded rounds of 78, 82 and 81. Haynes also finished second at the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour's Junior Girls' Players Champoinship in July. Annika Haynes