ARAPAHOE — After winning the 1-A Coastal Plains Conference title, Northside continued to roll on Monday. The Panthers, led this time by an exceptional performance by Riley Vanstaalduinen, dominated en route to their first ever 1-A eastern regional championship. They finished nearly 20 strokes better than second-place Riverside.

Vanstaalduinen shot an 83 to lead all golfers. Right behind him was Tucker Mooring, who finished with an 84. Brennan Baldwin shot a 94 and Bryson Radcliffe had a 96. Evan Cornelius rounded out Panthers golfers with a 104.

“It went well, I think, as a whole,” coach Jared Adams said. “Some of them didn’t have their best round, but they battled. They didn’t give up. Sometimes you have to grind it out. They grinded it out and found a way to score. It’s not the quality of your good shots, it’s the quality of your bad shots that makes or breaks your round.”

Radcliffe showed off his resilience. He struggled through the front and shot a 50 over the first nine holes. However, he bounced back and shot a 46 on the back nine to stop from breaking the century mark.

Vanstaalduinen and Mooring led the charge, per usual. The former continued to show an impressive degree of consistency for a sophomore.

“He didn’t let the bad shots get to him,” Adams said. “He controlled his emotions, as far as getting bad breaks from the course.”

This marks another first for Northside’s golf program. The Panthers had set their sights on these goals in the preseason. To follow through and achieve them has been an impressive feat, especially for such a young group.

“In the beginning, we picked a number, as a team, that we wanted to shoot,” Adams said, reflecting on the team’s approach early in the season. “We just worked on getting better and better every week, getting our average down a little bit. We’re not necessarily trying to beat out another team, but shoot a score that fits the skillset of our team. Right now, we’re trying to break 350.”

The Panthers shot a 357 at the regional, putting them well within cracking that 350 barrier by the time they compete for the state championship. Adams has an idea of some things he wants to work on ahead of Northside’s foray into the championship.

“I just want to work on our approach shots, like 150 yards into the green,” Adams said. “A lot of our guys are struggling at that range or yardage. That will save us some strokes. Most of them are striking well. … (I’d like them) to hit the green and two putt for par.”

Between what they accomplished on Monday and the improvements they’d like to make over the next few days, the Panthers are rather confident heading into next week’s state championship.

“We’re just going to take this win and look at it as an accomplishment, but we still need to get better,” Adams said. “To be a good golfer, you have to think about your wins and enjoy them, but also get back to the drawing board to improve. It’s real easy in golf to have one bad swing or one bad shot cost a whole round.”