The CAK Warriors won the TSSAA Division II-A state championship at Sevierville Golf Club on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Sevierville, Tennessee. (Photo by Danny Parker)
BY JESSE SMITHEY
SEVIERVILLE — The word spread fast Tuesday afternoon among players on the CAK golf team. And the quicker the message circulated, the more that birdies followed.
The comeback was on.
And the momentum snowballed in a hurry.
The Christian Academy of Knoxville trailed rival First Baptist Academy by as many as 11 strokes during the final round, but the Warriors shot a collective 5-under on the final nine holes at Sevierville Golf Club’s River Course to surge to their first Division II-A state championship since 2022.
CAK shot a two-day winning total of 25-over 601 to edge Jackson Christian School (606) and First Baptist Academy (608). Battle Ground Academy finished fourth at 613 while Franklin Christian (629) and Northpoint Christian (632) rounding out the leaderboard.
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Tyler Stafford, a junior at CAK, shot 4 under on his final seven holes and finished with a 2-over 74 Tuesday.
“I was looking at the leaderboard a little bit. And I started to make birdies, and I figured everybody else was,” he said of the comeback.
“It just happened,” he added. “Word got around that someone made a birdie and then it just went to somebody else.”
Aiden Cooper shot a team-best 71 for CAK on Tuesday, the sophomore carding clutch birdies on the par-3 17th and par-5 18th. Essentially green side in two shots on No. 18, Cooper faced a demanding long pitch shot to a pin placed on a shelf.
Cooper deftly got his ball out of the rough and onto the proper quadrant of the green. His pace on the 12-foot birdie proved true enough for it to die right into the cup.
“I definitely knew that we were close (to leading). I felt like that, if I made that (putt on 18), it would definitely give us more momentum to win it,” he said.
For Cooper, the son of CAK coach Donnie Cooper, being a part of a state championship winning team was definitely a goal, as he had watched his dad coach the Warriors to state titles in 2020, 2021 and 2022, as well as numerous state titles with the CAK girls.
Tuesday offered them a chance to celebrate one together.
“It means a lot, because Donnie — he’s the coach — and he was always coming home with trophies and medals and all that,” Aiden Cooper recalled. “So it feels good to win this one, especially because he’s the coach and he’s my dad.”
Franklin Road Academy senior Walker Webb, a senior who’s committed to Iowa State, repeated as the individual boys’ champion in Division II-A, firing rounds of 69 and 68 to finish at 7-under 137. That was good enough for a one-shot win over Jackson Christian’s Carson Andreoni (69-69). Andreoni birdied his final two holes Tuesday to close the gap. Webb bogeyed the par-5 final hole but his eagle on No. 10 and birdies on Nos. 14-15 gave him enough of a cushion to hold on to the win.
Stafford tied for fifth individually at 2-over 145.
Alex Green (71-74) of First Baptist Academy tied for fifth.
CAK’s Roddy Sturgeon (72—149) and Cooper finished tied for ninth and 12th, respectively.
The Grace Lady Rams won the TSSAA Division II-A state championship at Sevierville Golf Club on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Sevierville, Tennessee. (Photo by Danny Parker)
GRACE CHRISTIAN GIRLS
GO WIRE-TO-WIRE TO WIN
The pressure of sleeping on the overnight lead didn’t deter the Grace Christian girls from capturing their first-ever state championship.
Leading by four shots over University School of Jackson and by five over CAK, the Lady Rams wound up winning by eight at 47-over 327.
Lydia Walker shot a final-round, 11-over 81 at the Highlands Course and Leah Rowe an 80 to clinch the title.
Evangelical Christian School finished second at 335 while CAK (337) and USJ (339) were third and fourth. Webb-Bell Buckle was fifth at 360.
ECS’s Mathile Walker won the girls’ individual title by five strokes at 7-over 147, giving the ECS girls golf program its first-ever champion.
Walker and Rowe finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
“I’m so excited. It’s crazy,” Rowe said. “I had dreamed of maybe this happening, but I didn’t know if we could actually do it. So I’m so excited.
“Definitely, there’s been a lot of work put in with the team and outside of the team, individually. We’ve had a lot of practices and spent a lot of time with our coaches. But we really focused on having fun, and that helped keep me in the right mindset to be able to go out there and put together two decent rounds.”
Lydia Walker was the team’s lone senior.
She birdied the 10th hole Tuesday and closed with pars on three of her final four holes.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said. “We’ve played with each other since we started golf. And it’s just hard to believe that we won. We’ve always wanted to do this. So it’s just crazy that we won.”
DIVISION 1, CLASS A
Signal Mountain captured the Division I-A boys’ tournament at 24-over 600. Liberty Creek was second at 609 and Greeneville third at 614. Anderson County shot 623 to finish seventh in the tightly contested eight-team field.
Tucker Cruise of Signal Mountain signed for rounds of 74 and 70, and his even-par 144 total won the boys’ individual title by two shots over Dyer County’s Jarrett Harrison and McKenzie’s Ethan Bradberry.
Maddox Tackett (78-72) and Luke Baldwin (74-77) finished tied for ninth and 12th, respectively.
Fulton’s Beckett Stoutt shot a final-round 73 to ascend into a tie for 15th.
In girls’ play, defending-champion Greeneville made a second-day charge as its final-round 9-over 149 total proved to be the best in the field on Tuesday. The Lady Greene Devils just couldn’t produce any birdies on the final three-hole stretch to fully close the gap. They trailed Summertown by five after Day One.
Summertown won at 22-over 302 while Greeneville and Springfield tied for second at 304. Alcoa tied for fourth at 313.
Elizabeth Prowse of Springfield won the girls Division I-A individual title at 5-over 145, using a final-round 71 to climb past first-round leader Chloe Boyd of DeKalb County. Boyd shot rounds of 73 and 73 to wind up as runner-up.
Brylee Catron, a senior at Greeneville, shot even par Tuesday over her final 10 holes to help Greeneville make a charge. She ultimately signed for a 3-over 73 Tuesday on the Highlands Course.
Catron tied for third overall.
Kamryn Renner of Greeneville and Alcoa’s Ella Stone tied for ninth at 155. Renner shot 76 Tuesday and Stone 77.
Kylee Renner of Greeneville and Alcoa’s Sophia Parsons tied for 15th at 158.