Nine holes were all the Stewart County boys golf team needed to make history.
Stewart County posted seven birdies as a team on the back nine, rallying from a three-stroke deficit to defeat Signal Mountain for the TSSAA golf Class A boys state championship on Tuesday at Sevierville Golf Club.
The Class AA and Division II-AA boys and girls state tournament will be Thursday and Friday in Sevierville.
Stewart County won its first team state championship in any sport with Ayden Smith leading a huge turnaround Tuesday. He made three birdies on the back as he finished at 2-over, 146, to finish as the individual state runner-up behind White House Heritage’s Greyson Koch (1-over 145).
Stewart County finished at 37-over 613 as a team and won by 13 strokes.
“It means a lot to them, but it means a lot to this community,” Stewart County golf coach Nicholas Wallace said. “We’ve probably got about 100 people here who drove from Dover to Sevierville just to see this. When those birdies were going in on the back, you should’ve heard this place.”