Torrid start enables Yermish to advance to second round of match play in U.S. Girls' Junior Championship in Colorado

 

   Rule 1 in the How to Succeed in Match Play manual is simple: Get an early lead.

   Sidney Yermish, a two-time PIAA Class AAA champion during a brilliant scholastic career at Lower Merion, followed that game plan to perfection in the opening round of match play in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the U.S. Air Force Academy Eisenhower Golf Club’s Blue Course Wednesday to roll to a 2 and 1 victory over Jeneath Wong of Malaysia.

   Yermish’s preference for pronouns is they/them, so I’m trying to honor her wishes. Wong, coming off a really solid freshman season at Pepperdine and a spot in the field in the U.S. Women’s Open at the Pebble Beach Golf Links earlier this month, was probably wondering where the tsunami that swamped her came from.

   In a tweet I put out not long after Yermish’s victory, I said it looked like they birdied five of their first six holes. Upon closer inspection, Yermish birdied the first six holes as they and Wong halved the fourth hole with birdies.

   There might have been some match-play concessions in there, but Yermish won the first, second, third, fifth and sixth holes with birdies to take a commanding 5-up lead. Six straight birdies to start your first career match in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship is the stuff that dreams are made of.

   Wong kept battling, but she never cut her deficit to less than 2-down, getting that close by winning the 15^th hole with a par and 16 with a birdie. But when Yermish got a half with a par at the 17^th hole to close out Wong.

   The win earned Yermish, who will join the program at Big Ten power Michigan later this summer, a spot in the second round against Abra Richmond of Glendale, Calif. as Richmond pulled out a 2-up decision over Alisa Inprasit of Thailand in another opening-round match.

   Two rounds of matches are scheduled for Thursday with the winners of the second-round matches in the morning squaring off in the round of 16 in the afternoon. If the weather permits, only eight quarterfinalists will be left standing in the U.S. Girls’ Junior by the end of the day Thursday

   Another match of interest in the Philadelphia area pitted the most recent winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Junior Girls’ Championship, Aphrodite Deng, who is listed as being from Canada, against the 2020 WGAP Junior Girls winner, Avery McCrery, a Tower Hill sophomore who plays out of Wilmington Country Club.

   In a roller-coaster ride of a match, it was the 13-year-old Deng who pulled out a 2 and 1 victory over McCrery, winner of the individual crown in the Delaware scholastic championship in the spring at Baywood Greens in Long Neck, Del.

   Deng listed Short Hills, N.J. as her home when she teed it up in the WGAP Junior Girls earlier this month at the Moorestown Field Club. Deng put together eye-opening rounds of 63 and 67 for a 14-under 130 total to take the title by 12 shots.

   McCrery had a 1-up lead when she won the sixth hole with a par. But Deng took control of the match as she won the seventh hole with a birdie and the ninth and 10^th with pars to turn her 1-down deficit into a 2-up advantage.

   McCrery won the 12^th hole with a birdie to creep within 1-down, but Deng grinded out halves with pars at 13, 14 and 15 before restoring her 2-up advantage by taking 16 with a birdie. When they halved the 17th hole with pars, the matched belonged to Deng.

   Deng’s reward is a second-round meeting with Anna Davis of Spring Valley, Calif. and No. 4 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).

   Davis, winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship in the spring of 2022, cruised to a 4 and 2 victory over Thanana Kotchajanmanee of Thailand in her opening-round match.

   Yana Wilson of Henderson, Nev., the defending champion and the medalist in qualifying, rolled to a 5 and 4 decision over Ashley Kim of South Korea in her opening-round match.

   Gianna Clemente of Estero, Fla. was the runnerup to Wilson a year ago at The Club at Olde Stone in Bowling Green, Ky. Clemente, a native of Warren, Ohio and No. 41 in the Women’s WAGR, pulled out a hard-fought 1-up victory over Emily Song of Irvine, Calif. in her opening-round match.

   Katie Li of Basking Ridge, N.J. will join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke later this summer. Li was pitted against a prized recruit for Duke’s ACC rival, Wake Forest, the reigning NCAA champion, in Macy Pate of Winston Salem, N.C.

   Li claimed a 1-up victory over Pate and will take on Kaili Xiao of China in Thursday morning’s second round. Xiao, a 14-year-old who teed it up in the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach earlier this month, earned a 1-up victory over Swetha Sathish of Canada in her first-round match.