Harrison Campbell is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Hamilton High School for AZPreps365.com.

There are not many schools that can say they have seven state championships in a sport. Hamilton’s boys golf team can. As the hunt for an eighth title begins, Hamilton looks to rely on proven winners from last year, as well as some talented youngsters to repeat previous years success.

Hamilton is coming off a 2019 state championship where three returning players placed top 15 or higher at the Omni Tucson National. One of those three players is senior Johnny Walker, who placed first in Arizona at the 2019 tournament. Adding to the talent pool are Mahanth Chirravuri and Anawin Pikulthong, who placed fourth and T-12 at last year’s state championship respectively.

Hamilton finished the 2019 D1 Boys State Championship at -13 with a total score of 571, just narrowly beating out Brophy Prep by three strokes.

Normally, coming off such a successful season would add pressure to a team, but longtime coach Steve Kanner has done this a few times before. Hamilton won five consecutive state championships from 2005-2009 and has qualified for the state golf championships 22 years running.

"I'm extremely excited that the kids have a chance to play," Kanner said in an interview with AZCentral.com. "We never knew exactly what was going to happen with high school athletics, there's still a lot of unknowns with the other sports. But golf seems to have gotten off to a pretty good start so far."

Hamilton’s team is also known for having won six straight Arizona Stroke Play Championship by a student or a graduate. In addition to all the success at the state championships, Hamilton had five major tournament victories in the 2019 season including Brophy Invitational, Antigua Invitational, Cactus Classic, Ridge Invite, and Chandler Shootout.

The team is blessed with the return of two seniors, Alexander Paul and Walker, as well as four juniors and six underclassmen who will look to grow and continue the Hamilton golf legacy.

The rich legacy of the program has launched players' careers both collegiately and professionally. Hamilton golfers have landed at schools such as Stanford, Arizona State and Nebraska to name a few. Hamilton has even had pros come from their program like Chan Kim, who attended ASU and currently competes on the Japan Golf Tour.

Hamilton has all the right tools to make a back-to-back championship run, from many elite golfers to a coach who knows how to win. No wonder the Huskies are one of the favorites to win the state championship this year. Again.