Girls athlete of the week
The Post-Gazette’s top female performer from the past seven days
The past week: Smithco, a junior, won the PIAA Class 2A girls golf championship Oct. 22 at Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York, shooting a 6-over 78 on the first day and a 77 on the second day for a two-day, 11over 155 for a two-shot victory.
Check this out: This was Smithco’s second consecutive PIAA title, as she also won as a sophomore. Smithco won the WPIAL 2A championship earlier in October after placing second as a sophomore. What was better, winning for the first time or repeating?
Winning for the first time, it definitely felt a lot better last year. It was cool to do it twice, but I just think last year was a little bit more intense coming down to the end, because I had to go into a playoff. I heard you had to stop for a little bit during the championship? Yeah, on the eighth hole. I have a concussion, so occasionally I’ll get bad symptoms that are hard for me to play with. And I started to get dizzy and lose my sight and [got] nauseous, so I just sat down. There was a rules official right
there and he said that I could take a 15-minute break. How did you celebrate after the win? My golf coach and swing coach were both there so I pretty much just hung out with them afterward and we got dinner, but all my friends were there afterward, too, so I got to see them and take pictures and stuff. You still have a year of high school left, what’s left to accomplish? Trying to hopefully play college golf and just playing in tournaments in the beginning of next year to try and
hopefully play in college. How would you describe your playing style? I’m more of a relaxed person. I just try to not get upset, and if I do hit a bad shot, I’m the one that you’ll see just laughing because I can’t get mad over it, so I’ll just start laughing to myself. Do you have a golfer you look up to? And why do you look up to them? My favorite golfer is definitely Justin Thomas. I just think he has a really good attitude, and there’s one thing that he does with his golf swing that I also do that my golf coach tries to tell me to fix. I just argue with him that Justin Thomas does it and he’s one of the top golfers, so ... What is it that he does that you also do? On his driver, he picks up his back foot on his way down, and I do that a lot. Do you have any routine you do before you golf? I just have one playlist on my phone that I always listen to while I warm up. What’s on the playlist? I have a bunch. Mainly pump-up songs, some like Eminem, and the song Remember the Name.