The boys’ golf team qualified for the MCAL playoffs by a narrow margin and finished last, shooting a 341. On its way to playoff qualification, it picked up numerous memorable wins.

The team finished the season 9-9, meeting the requirement of a .500 record in order to qualify for the playoffs, but was not able to qualify for the NCS qualifiers.

Junior Grant Wyman played his first season with the golf team this year and said that the team’s efforts to reach the playoffs were more important than what happened at the playoff match.

“Even though we had one bad day in the championship, I think the cumulative effort to get to the championship is more important than our day at the championship,” Wyman said.

Head Coach Barry Briggs said the most memorable moment from the season did not come in the postseason, but instead came in the form of a win against Drake, a rival and one of the top teams in the league, on April 21.

“Any time you beat one of the top teams in the league you feel a certain accomplishment,” Briggs said.

The match against Drake was especially important because Drake had only lost to one other team the whole season. Redwood was not expected to win, Wyman said.

“We were the underdog in that matchup, but we pulled through,” Wyman said.

The win also came toward the end of the season and was a crucial step in the Giants’ pursuit of the nine wins needed to qualify.

“Although it didn’t wrap up the nine wins, we knew we had a matchup against one of the less competitive teams in the league,” Briggs said. “It essentially vaulted us into MCALs and that was one of our goals for the season.”

The team was familiar with not being a top competitor in the league, thanks to the previous season, according to Briggs.

“It is similar to the experience we had last year. We didn’t have a dominant team, but we had a very competitive team,” he said. “We ended up with a couple of wins that were really quite spectacular for us.”

The team this year did have some advantages that it did not have in previous years.

“We had depth that we did not have in years past,” he said. “We have eight players that could all compete at the league level.”

Wyman said that next year all but two players from this year will return to the team, boding well for the its future success.

“This year was sort of a rebuilding year, but next year we are bringing back almost the same group of guys,” Wyman said. “Next year we will definitely be as good as this year, if not better.”

Team captain Nick Laub, a senior, was a key contributor to the team’s success, according to Briggs.

“He has been outstanding. His stroke average for the year is a little bit above three over par,” Briggs said. “He has been our most consistent performer and our most valuable player.”

Wyman said that a major aspect of the team’s success was its strong team chemistry.

“Everyone on the team became really close, so we were playing for ourselves, but also playing for each other,” he said.