As the Boulder High Boys Golf season wraps up, there are two Panthers to watch out for in the state tournament: Anton Taranda ‘26 and Pierce Johnson ‘28. After Sam Skubic, ‘27, Boulder’s best golfer from last season, suffered an elbow injury that would leave him sidelined this year, Boulder needed someone to step up to fill his shoes. And the whole team did, especially Taranda and Johnson.
This was Taranda’s fourth and final season on Varsity, and his sweet lefty stroke earned him Second Team All-Conference accolades last year. Additionally, he won a tournament for the first time last season, shooting a personal best on that day. Taranda says, “Winning that tournament made me realize that I could perform under pressure, and that gave me a huge boost of confidence.” His successes in his junior season encouraged him to work harder than he ever had as he headed into his senior year. With a new sense of enthusiasm in his game, Taranda spent almost every day this past summer at the golf course.
Johnson was also eager to build upon his successes last season. After coming off a stellar freshman campaign, earning First Team All-Conference honors and a berth to the state tournament, Johnson came into his sophomore season hoping to solidify his spot as one of the best players in the Rocky Mountain League, if not in the state.
Despite the heavy preseason preparation from Taranda and Johnson, and the addition of Reid Cooper, ‘29, to the team, who would make the varsity squad as a freshman (and eventually be named Second Team All Conference), the Panthers struggled early on. They placed last in their first tournament. In their first league match, Boulder took third place, and Taranda wasn’t in the top 15 finishers. Taranda says that in the past, he would try to use bad performances like this as fuel. He would get upset at what he did wrong, which wouldn’t lead to better results the next time. However, after a rough start to his senior season, Taranda found a way to mentally reset. He says, “I wasn’t going to let one bad tournament define who I am as a golfer.”
And he certainly didn’t, and the rest of the team followed suit. In the Panthers’ second league match, Johnson, Gabe Kadonaga, ‘27, and Taranda took home second, third, and fourth place, respectively. And Boulder placed first as a team. In their next match, Taranda and Johnson finished first and second. In their last league match, Johnson placed second, and Taranda placed 4th. Despite their poor starts to the year, Johnson and Taranda had each earned top-five finishes in each league match since the first.
If Taranda’s junior season showed that he played well under pressure, his performance in the Rocky Mountain League Championship only reinforced it. Taranda played some of the best golf of his life that day, shooting one under par, which led the Panthers to a second-place finish in the league. And at the end of the day, Taranda had won the league championship in the last league match of his career.
As Taranda’s career finishes at his first-ever berth in the state tournament, Johnson will be playing alongside him, trying to improve upon his stellar tournament debut. Though Boulder lost its star player to injury, Taranda and Johnson rose to the occasion to lead the Panthers to a solid team season, and it remains to be seen just how far they will each go in the state tournament.
