On Thursday afternoon, the Palmerton golf team got a quick glimpse of the Applecross Country Club course during a non-competitive practice round.

Those few hours of preparation were not enough to help the Bombers on Friday, however, in a PIAA Class 2A sub-regional.

“As I have been saying the last three years to these kids, golf is a process,” said Palmerton coach Alex Knoll. “Every day is a new building block on another. Today was a tough course. It’s a new golf course for all of them. We all played it for the first time yesterday. Sometimes you need to play a course a lot, or many more at times, to become familiar with it.

“I just didn’t think we were familiar enough with it enough based off of what I saw yesterday, and that unfortunately kind of played out today.”

On the other hand, Devon Prep, which was in the same boat with playing time on Applecross CC, put together a solid effort with the day’s best team score of 314 to move on to next week’s state championship tournamentevent. The Bombers finished in second with a 334, while New Hope-Solebury rounded things out with a 379.

“This is a great opportunity to get to this stage of the season with our team,” Knoll said. “We’re only one step short of the finals, and that’s something to be very proud of. Today just wasn’t our day, but it was still one heck of a year.”

Connor Reinhard rebounded from his heart-wrenching playoff loss on Tuesday at the District 11 Class 2A Individual Championships to lead his team with a 77.

“Connor fought back today and shot our best round,” said Knoll. “He didn’t let Tuesday put him down. Instead, he put the team first and really played hard and played well.

“I think a lot of accolades go to Connor for putting a really tough individual loss off to the side and playing for the good of his team today and playing well.”

Tyler Hager chipped in with a solid round of 78, while Josh Suto, who won the District 11 Class 2A Individual title earlier in the week, struggled slightly and couldn’t break 80. Nathan Steinmetz had a 90 for Palmerton.

“You can’t judge an entire year based on the last round,” Knoll said. “It’s just like in every other sport, every other team is going to lose their last match other than the champion. So, you can’t look at this whole season, and say, ‘Wow, we had a tough day.’

“It’s the way it goes in golf. Some days you’re just not on level with your game, and today we weren’t, but that’s just the way it goes. We had a great year. We did a lot of things that we never thought we would be able to do.”

SECOND CHANCE … Not everybody gets a second chance for the Bombers. But Suto and Hager will have that chance on Monday at the PIAA Individual Championship. “It’s just about them on Monday, which is good,” Knoll said. “In golf, it’s an individual sport in the end and a team aspect is always a unique twist to the sport. So Monday, it’s their own game, and they get to focus on themselves. Sometimes that can lead to a lot better result than when you’re worried about how all your other friends are doing.”

A KNIGHTS HONOR … Nick Ciocca grabbed medalist honor on the day sparking the Knights with a one-over-par score of 73.