Port Neches-Groves, after shooting 327 Wednesday, faces an uphill climb over today’s final 18 holes to make it to the boys 5A state golf tournament.

With three team spots available at state, the District 22-5A champs are 12 shots behind third place Georgetown’s 315. Magnolia at 304 and Cedar Park at 310 are pretty much out of the Indians’ reach. Fourth place Tomball is at
321.

Timothy Feemster, the District 22-5A individual champ, paced the Indians with a six-over-par 77. Josh Elmore was in at 78. None of the Indians other players was able to do better than 85.

Chase Selman rebounded from an opening nine 46 to shoot the 85. Bryce Parsley posted 87 and Victor Aponte carded an 89.

“We still have a shot,” said PNG coach Ricky Keyes. “Twelve shots can be made up on a course where scoring is tough. We just need to play a little better and the teams in front of us have to struggle a little.”

If the Indians don’t make it as a team, Feemster and Elmore will have a chance to advance as one of the low three individuals not on one of the three teams that qualify for state. The good news for them is that many of the low scores were posted by players on the leading teams.

H.S. Chang of Cedar Park is the individual leader at even-par 71. The next two leaders, however, Vishru Sadagopan (72) and Lucas Barrow (73), are not on teams in the top tier.

Feemster finished the first 18 holes tied for 10th while Elmore was T15.

PNG’s No. 2 team, which also qualified for regional, shot 379. Dalton Shields had the low score of 87. Paul Muse was next at 90, followed by Jake Gauthier’s 100 and a 106 by Blake Makelki.

Nederland’s Brendan Marley, who qualified for regional as an individual, shot 86.