The Heritage Hills Golf Resort has been kind to the Radnor
golf program.
The PIAA Tournament first came to the layout in
Springettsbury Township in York County in 2002 and Radnor junior Adam Cohan
christened the place by winning the PIAA championship in a playoff. A year
later Cohan and Strath Haven’s Conrad Von Borsig staged a memorable
head-to-head duel before finishing in a tie for second.
Three years later with the PIAA staging a team championship
in golf for the first time, the Radnor boys grabbed that title in frigid
conditions at Heritage Hills.
Three years later, Radnor senior Jackie Calamaro took
control of the girls championship in the first round and never let go in
bringing a state championship back to the Main Line.
Three more years later, with senior Jamie Susanin and
freshman Brynn Walker leading the way, the Radnor girls claimed the Class AAA
state team title on a sun-splashed day in York County.
Walker will tee it up in the opening round of the PIAA Class
AAA Tournament Monday at Heritage Hills and has to be considered a contender
for a state title. The junior All-Delco topped the field at last week’s East
Regional with a 2-under-par 70 at Golden Oaks Golf Club after struggling to a
tie for sixth at the District One Tournament a week earlier.
Walker has played a lot of golf at a very high level since
finishing in a tie for fifth at Heritage Hills a year ago. The St. Davids Golf
Club member criss-crossed the country this summer, earning spots in the U.S.
Girls Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur championships, rubbing elbows with the
top junior players at the inaugural AJGA’s Yani Tseng Invitational.
When Walker walks on a golf course these days, it is with
the full knowledge that she can go under par. She understands that golf being
golf, she often won’t get there, but she knows she is fully capable of playing
that kind of golf.
Heritage Hills is a quirky course. Chichester’s Aurora Kan
doesn’t finally win a state championship in her fourth try in 2010 if her tee
shot at the short par-4 16th hole in the final round, seemingly
headed for the creek that borders the right side of the hole, doesn’t instead
catch the cart path just short of the creek and instead bound up on the green.
When Kennett’s Christine Shimel won the state title in 2008,
it began an uninterrupted run of champions from District One. Class AA has been
added since, but the champion or Class AAA champion has been from District One
ever since Shimel won six years ago.
The Class AAA champion will likely emerge from the group of
seven District One players who were among the top eight finishers at last
week’s East Regional.
Chief among them is Pennsbury senior Jackie Rogowicz, who
has been the runnerup in Class AAA in each of the last two years and won her
second District One title two weeks ago. Rogowicz finished two shots back of
Walker in second at Golden Oaks.
Walker’s pal, Council Rock North junior Madelein Herr,
shared third place at Golden Oaks with a 73. Walker and Herr teamed up the week
before districts to take medalist honors in qualifying for the inaugural U.S.
Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship. Herr’s older sister Erica won
back-to-back state championships in 2011 and 2012 and very nearly won a third
as a senior a year ago.
Owen J. Roberts’ junior Maddie Sager, who shared fifth place
with Walker at Heritage Hills a year ago, finished in a tie for third at the
regional with Herr.
Villa Maria senior Cara Basso was the Class AA state
champion as a sophomore and has moved up to Class AAA this fall. She was sixth
at Golden Oaks followed by Unionville’s Kate Evanko in seventh and
Coatesville’s Sammie Staudt in eighth.
The stage is set for what figures to be quite a shootout at
Heritage Hills.
Lees on a roll on Junior Tour
Agnes Irwin freshman Kaitlyn Lees made it three straight
Philadelphia PGA Junior Tour wins in a row as the Philadelphia Country Club
member carded an 89 in windy conditions Saturday to finish atop the 16-to-18
division at the Links Golf Club in Marlton, N.J.
Lees, the Inter-Ac League champion as a seventh-grader and
runnerup as an eighth-grader last spring, had one birdie on her card.
Maggie Cass of Wayne finished third in the division with a
100 and Radnor junior Caitlin Bullock was fourth with a 110.
Garnet Valley’s Jake Hudock finished in a tie for fifth in
the 16-to-18 boys division with an 85. Luca Jezzeny of Furlong took top honors
in the division after finishing in a tie with Ethan Murphy of Mechanicsburg at 80 and winning a scorecard
playoff.
The day’s best round belonged to Caleb Ryan of Norristown,
who had a 1-over 72 over the 6,418-yard, par-71 Links layout to top the
13-to-15 age group. Matthew Davis of Newtown Square finished second with a 79, D.J.
Colleran of Radnor was fourth with an 81, Matthew Barkann of Newtown Square was
13th with a 92 and Daniel Bullock of Wayne was 15th with
a 95.
Among the nine-holers, Jackson Fields of Glen Mills finished
in a tie for fifth with a 47 and Roy Anderson of Chadds Ford was ninth with a
51. Alex Mulrooney of Wilmington, Del. topped the division with a 38.
No comments:
Post a Comment