Heavy favorite NA eyes third title in row

Tri-State Sports & News Service

North Allegheny has won the past threeWPIAL and two PIAA Class 3A girls golf titles, but the team will be taking a different approach as it attempts to win four in a row for the first time since the Tigers pulled off thefeat from 1986-89.

“We’re looking even better than last year and I always thought that this year, their senior year, would be the year,” North Allegheny coach Michael Hambrick said. “We’ve never had this deep of a team. We probably have four girls who can shoot in the 70s and we’ve never had that before. It’s a really lucky situationwhere I’m at right now.”

North Allegheny returns a Furman recruit in senior Caroline Wrigley,who set a WPIAL record with a 5under67 last season at Diamond Run to win her second consecutive individual title by four strokes. The Tigers also bring back WPIAL thirdplace finisher Christina Lewis, who is also weighing Division I offers, as well as a Western Regional qualifier injunior Esha Vaidya and their No. 4 playerfrom a year ago in junior Bella Walter.

Like most top-notch high school golfers, North Allegheny’s top players work with individual swing coaches, which makes it incumbent upon their high school coach not to do too much to interfere, which couldcause friction.

“They all have coaches and play on their own a lot, so the coaching partof it will suffer a little bit because they’realways listening to somebody else,” Hambrick said. “So my part of it is just organizing and motivating them and being around just in case somethinggoes wrong.”

Itmay sound like one of the easiest jobs in the WPIAL, to put four of the top individuals in the area on a course and just let them play. But there is more that goes into bringing this team together and making it a forceto be reckoned with.

“I’m going to say it’s not easy because we’re expected to win,” Hambricksaid. “And I don’t just expect us to win, but to break every record in thebook that’s ever been.”

Last year, North Allegheny shot an incredible 315 at the WPIAL Class 3A finals at Cedarbrook to win the titleby a whopping 42 strokes over Fox Chapel then followed it up with a 240 to take the state title by 18 over Mount St. Joseph’s. To that end, Hambrick will be taking the leashes off all of his players and allowing them to do some things they might beable to do in tournament play.

“Literally, we should be able to go through the motions and win states. We want to be the best that we can be and we’ve already won the last two state titles and we’re thinking what else is there out there,” Hambrick said. “We had a little meeting with the varsity girls and I told them that the pressure is self-imposed this year. We should win without a problem, so I want them to go for pins and go for greens in two and not play safe golf,but aggressive golf.”

Though there could be a danger in playing that way, especially when it’s against most of the players’ nature, Hambrick is ready to rein the teamback in when necessary.

“That’s going to be my job as a coach, to pull them back in when things start going goofy,” Hambrick said. “I would have to pull them back out and tell them just to play the courseand not shoot low scores.”

Class 2A

Greensburg Central Catholic has won the past three WPIAL Class 2A team titles and senior Abby Zambruno will be attempting to finish hercareer out with a perfect record.

There is, though, one thing missingfrom her resume. Anindividual championship. Zambruno played behind her WPIAL and state-title-winning sister Olivia in the two years before taking over the top spot for the Centurions. Last year, her first leading the team, she finished fourth in the WPIAL individual finals, three shots out of the lead.

Andall three players who finished infront of her are back.

Sewickley Academy senior Tatum McKelvey will enter the year as the defending WPIAL individual champion, while Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic junior Maddie Smithco, who won the state title in a playoff with Vleska Gelpi of Rockwood,also returns.

If that weren’t enough of a challenge, Central Valley returns senior Kiaria Porter, who won the WPIAL Class 2A crown in 2016.