Matthew Vital and Matt Zerfass have been going head to head on local golf courses since they were in grade school.

In their final year of high school competition, they had a pair of epic postseason battles over the past few weeks. Zerfass edged Vital in a playoff two weeks ago to win the league championship. Vital got revenge last Tuesday with a one-stroke victory over the Emmaus senior in the District 11 Class 3A Championship, held at The Steel Club in Hellertown.

An eagle on the 15th hole put Vital in the lead and he held on to shoot 2-under par 70 for his first district title.

“We’ve been playing tournaments together since I was nine or 10 playing GALV tournaments,” said Vital. “Ever since then we’ve always been battling it out in EPC and [districts].”

Zerfass had a one-shot lead through 10 holes before Vital made birdie on the 11th hole and both were at 1-under par for the day. Zerfass birdied No. 12, but then bogeyed the next hole to keep things even.

When they got to the 15th Zerfass might have had hopes of putting ahead when Vital, who missed birdie putts on his previous two holes, drove his ball into the trees on the par 5. But he made a great shot, a cut 7-iron from nearly 180 yards, then drained a long putt for eagle while Zerfass made birdie.

“That was a great putt,” Vital said. “I think that was the turning point because I missed one on 12, missed one on 13 and then I got to 14 and I hit my drive in the trees. To make the eagle there, that set me up.”

Vital made bogey on the 17th hole, but Zerfass doubled bogeyed before a birdie on the last hole closed the gap to one stroke.

Vital led the way as all five Liberty golfers who competed in districts posted rounds in the 70s to help the Hurricanes repeat as team champions. They shot a team score of 379 and beat Emmaus (384) by five strokes to pick up a sweep of all three titles this season (league regular season, league tournament and district tournament).

They’ve been the best team for the past two seasons and when the postseason rolls around and only five players compete and just four scores count, the Hurricanes got even stronger.

“We aren’t deep in the regular season,” said Liberty head coach Steve Bradley. “We only had five and then there’s a huge drop off. We knew if we could get to the postseason, now we’re deep. Now we have solid players that go out and score. So we’re very comfortably where we’re at right now and hopefully we can go down and compete with a very good District 12 team.”

Liberty had to compete in a subregional match against the District 12 champ Monday to earn a place at next week’s state team tournament.

Vital and his brother Michael, who shot 74 and tied for third place at districts, both earned the right to compete in Tuesday’s PIAA Class 3A Championships at Heritage Hills Golf Course in York. That event was played after Press deadline.

Northampton’s Trent Moyer eared the sixth and final spot when he won a tiebreaker with Saucon Valley’s Giffort Hart. Both players shot 77 before the playoff for the final berth. It took one playoff hole for Moyer to advance.

Moyer shot an 88 at Tuesday’s state tournament, that included a 41 on the back-nine which included six pars on the back. Moyer was hurt by two double-bogeys and a triple-bogey on the front nine where he shot a 47. He did have two pars on the front nine.

The Kids Madison Salter missed out on a trip to states. She shot a 92 but was 10 strokes back of Bangor’s Natalie White who carded an 82 for the third and final spot for the 3A girls.

Emmaus senior Evelyn Wong repeated as the District 11 Class 3A girl champs, shooting 75 to beat Saucon Valley’s Emma Shelby by three strokes.

In Class 2A, Palmerton’s Josh Suto shot 1-under par and edged Evan Eichenlaub (Moravian Academy) by one stroke. Brooke Poweis (North Schuylkill) won the Class 2A girls tournament with a 104.

Palmerton won the Class 2A team championship.

District 11 Golf

Championships

CLASS 3A BOYS

1. Liberty 300, 2. Emmaus 303, 3. Nazareth 322, 4. Lehighton 350.

PIAA qualifiers

1. Matt Vital (Liberty) 70, 2. Matt Zerfass (Emmaus) 71, 3. Michael Vital (Liberty) 74, 4. Hunter Probst (Stroudsburg) 75, 5. Aiden LeBlanc (Emmaus) 76, 6. *Trent Moyer (Northampton) 77.

Did not qualify

7. Giffort Hart (Saucon Valley) 77, 8. Erik Smith (Saucon Valley) 78, 8. Jase Barker (Liberty) 78, 8. Matthew Ronca (Liberty) 78, 11. Colin Zavacky (Saucon Valley) 79, 11. Freddy Bacon (Bangor) 79, 11. James Kelly (Parkland) 79, 14. Chase Skrapits (Nazareth) 80, 15. Noah Schurman (Emmaus) 81, 16. Cohen Resch (Southern Lehigh) 82, 16. Owen Fahs (Nazareth) 82, 18. Colin Sarnoski (Southern Lehigh) 83, 18. Michael Andrews (Southern Lehigh) 83, 20. Will Eberz (Stroudsburg) 84, 21. Aaron Miller (Lehighton) 86, 21. Aiden Greenberg (Nazareth) 86, 21. Drew Bohl (Nazareth) 86, 21. Pierce Argot (Pocono Mountain East) 86, 25. Nick Taborelli (Pocono Mountain East) 87, 25. Trey Spring (Lehighton) 87, 27. Cole Maksimik (Blue Mountain) 89, 28. Deacon Dickinson (Southern Lehigh) 92, 29. Lydon Patascher (Pleasant Valley) 103.

*Won on first playoff hole

CLASS 3A GIRLS

PIAA Qualifiers

1. Evelyn Wong (Emmaus) 75, 2. Emma Shelby (Saucon Valley) 78, 3. Natalie White (Bangor) 82

Did not qualify

4. Ashlyn McCormick (Pocono Mountain West) 89, 5. Madison Salter (Northampton) 92, 6. Camryn Hoff (Nazareth) 93, 7. Allie Tarreto (Nazareth) 94, 8. Sydni Sundstrom (Parkland) 99, 8. Kristine Landis (Whitehall) 99, 10. Marla Freiwald (Blue Mountain) 100, 11. Chloe Chase (Parkland) 101, 11. Danielle Crenshaw (Parkland) 101, 13. Paulina Poels (Bangor) 103, 14. Maddie Hagens (Southern Lehigh) 105.

CLASS 2A BOYS

1. Palmerton 308, 2. Central Catholic 328, 3. Mahanoy Area 388, 4. Schuylkill Haven 397.

PIAA Qualifiers

1. Josh Suto (Palmerton) 71, 2. Evan Eichenlaub (Moravian Academy) 72, 3. Ben Ortwein (Notre Dame Green Pond) 75, 4. *Tyler Hager (Palmerton) 76.

Did not qualify

5. Connor Reinhard (Palmerton) 76, 6. Nathan Myers (Central Catholic) 78, 7. Tyler Barton (Schuylkill Haven) 79, 8. Charlie Long (Central Catholic) 81, 9. Jeff Markosky (North Schuylkill) 84, 10. Thomas Young (Moravian Academy) 86, 10. Aaron Janis (Central Catholic) 86, 10. Peter McGinley (Tamaqua) 86, 13. Sebastian Holbrook (Moravian Academy) 87, 14. Grant Culbert (Pine Grove) 90.

*Won on fourth playoff hole

CLASS 2A GIRLS

PIAA qualifiers

None

Did not qualify

1. Brooke Powis (North Schuylkill) 104, 2. Katie Miller (Tamaqua) 125