Last season, the Bedford golf team fell just shy of winning the Class I state championship. This year, the players raised their games, dropped their scores and, in the program’s third year, won the title.

The Bulldogs cruised to victory on Thursday, Oct. 1, at White Mountain Country Club, managing an eight-stroke margin of victory over Oyster River, their closest competitor, to earn the crown.

As has been the case throughout the season, Jake Nutter led the Bulldog charge, shooting an 18-hole 73 on the day, followed closely by Nate Larrivee’s 75. Andrew Weeks and Ryan Tombs also broke 80 on the course, each carding a 78.

Bedford ended the day with a team total of 304 to best Oyster River’s 312 and thirdplace Hanover’s 316.

“We all focused on this one goal of coming away with a state title all season,” said head coach Joel St. Laurent. “They played good, steady golf and avoided the disastrous big score.”

During the regular season the Bulldogs were nearly unstoppable, defeating every team until the final match of the season on Sept. 24.

In that tournament tuneup, Bedford fell just short of an unbeaten season when it defeated Pelham but lost to Souhegan by one stroke.

Nutter shot a school recordbreaking 31 that day, but the Sabers had what their head coach called a career day to win.

On Saturday, Oct. 3, Nutter earned second place during the Class I individual championship, a single shot shy of the event’s winner, Coe-Brown’s Codi Daudelin.

“He never beats himself, and he has great course management skills,” said St. Laurent of Nutter. “He rarely will make worse than a bogey, and he doesn’t make many of those. He has the right outlook and the right head for the game. He’s always under control.”

Larrivee’s two-day total of 151 placed him fourth in the individual competition. Tombs matched his 78 on day two, tying for 11th overall, and Weeks fired an 82 on Oct. 3 to finish in the top 20.

Max Lawless carded an 82 on Oct. 1, and Kevin White managed an 83 that day for the Bulldogs.

One difference between this year’s state-title winning team and last year’s runner-up squad, which lost by eight shots to a senior-heavy Lebanon group, was the play of Weeks.

“That is one impact player who we’ll be losing,” said St. Laurent. “We’ll miss him tremendously next year. He made a quantum leap in the last year, and he has become a really solid player.”

St. Laurent said Weeks’ dedication to improve was a quality shared by many on the team.

In addition to Weeks, the Bulldogs lose fellow seniors Lawless, Travis Martin, Tyler Walsh, White and Matt Woodmansee. Juniors from this year’s team include Joe Angelini, Zach Husband, Nutter and Neil Patel, who joined sophomore Larrivee and freshmen Dylan Cowette, A.J. Spagnuolo, Tombs and Matt Weeks on the roster.

“They worked hard, they played hard, and it was rewarding to see them get what they had coming to them,” said St. Laurent. “They deserved to win.”