Back in 2007, West Allegheny High School golf head coach Josh Bears was the head coach of the school’s boys basketball team that won a WPIAL championship as the No. 16 seed.
Fast-forward 19 years later, Bears saw many parallels from that 2007 basketball squad as West Allegheny’s golf team captured its first WPIAL golf championship in program history, winning the Class 3A crown after edging out Fox Chapel by two strokes, 384-386, on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at Cedarbrook Gold Golf Course in Belle Vernon.
Required Reading: West Allegheny's Nico Ward continues impressive year with WPIAL title
“It is something intrinsic about this West Allegheny community that allows us to be so successful,” Bears said. “It means a lot to this team to be able to do something that no other team has done in program history, but most of all, seeing the boys battle and enjoy the moment tonight is what I am most proud of.”
Down to the wire
It wouldn’t be a WPIAL championship if the title didn’t go down to the wire. For West Allegheny, that’s exactly how the final pair of holes played out.
After Levi Vaughn had a bogey on hole 17, the WPIAL’s Class 3A individual champion Nico Ward found himself in a precarious situation, sitting behind three trees and having to clear water about 120 yards from the green.
“I told him that we needed a birdie out of him either on No. 17 or the final hole. Nico said he had a shot, made it onto the green and made a 15-foot downhill putt, one of the hardest on the course,” Bears said. “He showed more emotion than winning the WPIAL Championship or any tournament he’s played. That’s how much that shot meant to him to be able to do it for his team. Nico won us this team championship because if he were to bogey that hole, we would have lost by a stroke.”
The big three
West Allegheny’s team consists of Lucas Dove, Leighton Locante and Thomas Slomski, with the lineup being led by Ward, Ethan Bobonski and Levi Vaughn.
Required Reading: Pair of Beaver Valley golfers punch ticket to states at WPIAL 2A championships
Required Reading: Pair of Beaver Valley golfers punch ticket to states at WPIAL 2A championships
Ward gets a lot of the attention, coming off a WPIAL Class 3A individual title and was one qualifying round away from playing in the 2026 U.S. Open.
But Bobonski and Vaughn have each played an equally important role for the squad, being the missing pieces to the puzzle.
Bobonski has grown leaps and bounds, from being a freshman who couldn’t handle adversity to a golfer who can shake off bad breaks and is uber consistent, shooting just above or below par each round.
Vaughn is an aggressive player who hunts pins. And after his appearance at the WPIAL individual championships, where the trio all qualified for the states, has become a completely different golfer, playing with a lot of confidence in the two rounds of the team playoffs.
“I truly feel that those three are three of the top five golfers in the WPIAL,” Bears said. “Nico Ward gets all the credit, which is all well deserved, but that takes the eyes off Ethan Bobonski and Levi Vaughn who fly under the radar. Those three are great leaders, golfers and team players, but they are all three different dynamic animals.”
A team environment
When people think about the game of golf, many look at the sport as individualized. But at West Allegheny, the program has embraced the team aspect of high school golf, with each player deeply invested in their teammates’ success.
“No offense to any other team, but I don’t think that there are a lot of teams in golf that care this much about their team’s success more than this team,” Bears said. “We don’t have country club kids or swing coaches; we just have players that are determined to fight through adversity and be successful together. These kids not only want to win, but they want to win together.”
Now, West Allegheny will have a busy week up at Penn State University on Oct. 19-21, with Ward, Bobonski and Vaughn competing in the individual championship on Monday and Tuesday, while the rest of the team will compete for a PIAA state title on Wednesday.
Ethan Morrison is the sports reporter for the Beaver County Times. Contact him at emorrison@usatodayco.com and follow him at EthanMorrison26 on X.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: West Allegheny boys golf captures first team title in program history