Defending champs all repeat

Central Catholic came out of a scrum a year ago to win the WPIAL Class 3A team golf title by one stroke.

This year at Cedarbrook Golf Club in Belle Vernon the Vikings had a little more breathing room, though, as they finished with 386 to defeat Peters Township by five strokes and win their second consecutive championship.

“There are so many good teams in the WPIAL and in our section,” Central Catholic coach Corey O’Connor said. “It was a tough day for us because our kids are so close with the Fox Chapel kids and with what happened [Wednesday], it was hard for us to focus.”

Fox Chapel, the 2016 WPIAL Class 3A runner-up and Central Catholic’s Section 4 rival, won a semifinal Tuesday at Linden Hall. But four members of the Foxes team were involved in a severe car accident Wednesday morning and none participated in the final.

“We really made the decision to play or not to play based on the condition of the kids involved and the parents out of respect,” Fox Chapel coach Bryan Deal said. “Everybody had some input on it and what to do and, if it had been more serious and threatening injuries, then we would have not considered being here.”

Ofthe students who were injuredin the accident, only 2016 WPIAL Class 3A individual champion Gregor Meyer, who had minor injuries and stitches, was able to be present but did not play. Without the starters, Fox Chapel came in sixth (last)with 426.

Central Catholic wasn’t the only repeat winner in the boys division.

In what was supposed to be a rebuilding year, Sewickley Academy won its fifth consecutive Class 2A crown with 406. Quaker Valley (413) finished second.

It wasn’t only the boys who had repeat winners in both classifications.

North Allegheny’s girls took their third consecutive championship in dominant fashion as two-time WPIAL individual champion Caroline Wrigley shot a 2-over 73 and fellow junior Christina Lewisa 76 to help the Tigers to a team-total of 315. That mark was 14 strokes better than their winning score from 2016 and 42 strokes better than second-place Fox Chapel.

In Class 2A, Greensburg Central Catholic became the second team to win three consecutive titles as the Centurions shot 357 for an eight-stroke edge over Sewickley Academy.