LONE TREE – Cheyenne Mountain senior Brayden Destefano said he spent too many rounds a year ago stressing to prove himself again after winning an individual golf state championship as a sophomore.

In his final round of high school golf, however, his eyes were set only on a team title.

Cheyenne Mountain won its fifth boys golf state title on Tuesday, winning the Class 4A championship, shooting 6-over-par 438 at Lone Tree Golf Club and Hotel.

Destefano, who won the individual title when the Red-Tailed Hawks won it all in 2024, led the way, finishing tied for third at 2-under 142.

“Last year, my mindset was I had to go and win it again and prove something,” Destefano said. “But this year, I came into the state tournament not caring as much about the individual title. I just really wanted to win it with the group of guys we had. They’re my best friends.”

Somewhere, Monarch’s Bode Truman is still trying to process his 4A individual title.

Unlike the setup of the 1998 movie The Truman Show, this is real world. Believe it, Truman.

The junior picked a heck of a time to have the best golf round of his life. He shot a career-best 7-under-par 65 on the second day, winning the individual title by one stroke over Falcon’s Cayden Besler.

“I felt like such an underdog this week,” said Truman, who entered the tournament ranked 13th in iWanamaker’s 4A individual rankings. “I deal with imposter syndrome, just feeling like sometimes I don’t belong. And I didn’t really feel like it was in the cards for me to win state. It’s still setting in. It’s unreal.”

(Brent New)

On a perfect, 80-degree day in Lone Tree, Truman tallied eight birdies across his final round to claim the Coyotes’ first golf title since 2022, when Caleb Michaels erased a five-shot deficit to win the 5A championship.

Truman rallied from three shots back of Besler on Tuesday, sealing his victory with a tap-in putt on No. 18.

Soaked by his teammates with water on the 18th green, Truman finished the two-day tournament 9-under 135. Besler carded 136, six strokes better than the rest of the field.

“We’ve talked a lot of times that there’s a tournament where we know that number could have been lower and we were trying to save it for the right time,” Monarch coach Geoff Findley said. “That’s been an ongoing joke between his dad and I, and I said it was going to happen when it matters most.”

Tuesday played out like this:

Truman caught Besler thanks to four birdies on the front nine.

Then Besler got back within a shot of Truman after his birdie on par-5 No. 16 — a hole he double-bogeyed on Day 1.

Truman and Besler each birdied No. 17 before parring the final hole.

“He made sure to put the pedal to the metal the whole round,” Besler said of Truman. “He was the better competitor the whole day. So, just respect him for all of that.”

Timnath took second in the team race, shooting 444. Monarch was third (450), followed by Falcon (455) and Kent Denver (457).

Rounding out the top 10 individuals were Timnath’s Greysen Kilburn (142), Golden’s Cooper Buchholz (145), Northridge’s Everett Lewis (145), Monarch’s Jake Bradley (145), Sand Creek’s Caleb Grenier (146), Durango’s Drew Jepson (147), Poudre’s Gavin Dorssom (147) and Cheyenne Mountain’s Fenn Mullins (147).