TITLE SHOTS AWAIT AT PIAA TOURNAMENTS
Fox Chapel senior Scott Bitar may have had a territorial advantage when he won the WPIAL Class 3A individual title at Fox Chapel Golf Club, a course where he is a member.
That does not mean he isn’t also a really good golfer.
Bitar finished tied for third with Central Catholic freshman Rocco Salvitti when both shot a 1-under 71 Tuesday at the PIAA Western Regional at Tom’s Run Golf Course in Blairsville. Both players were among the 10 finalists who qualified for the state finals, which open Monday at Heritage Hills in York.
And there are a lot of faces in that crowd who have never made it this far. Of the 10 players who made it through qualifying, eight were from the WPIAL. Only one, Pine-Richland senior Donnie Professori, has ever pushed through to the finals. Professori made the cut in 2017 and finished 35th out of 36 when he shot a 22-over 166 for the two-day tournament.
Winning the state championship has been anything but a given for WPAL golfers. Before Franklin Regional alumnus Palmer Jackson won last year, the district had gone five years without a winner.
Jackson and Grant Engel of Upper St. Clair, who won in 2013, were the only WPIAL representatives to take home the Class 3A title since the sport split into two classifications in 2012.
Franklin Regional also has a chance of becoming the first WPIAL school to have a repeat winner since Knoch’s Jeff Dickson took home the crown in 1991-92. Junior Chuck Tragesser, who had a share of the lead at the turn in the WPIAL finals, finished tied for fifth and made the cut.
Class 2A boys
Sewickley Academy will have a distinct advantage when it plays in the team finals on Wednesday as two of its players, senior J.F. Aber and junior Navin Rana, will have played the course the previous two days in the individual championships. They will try to join Jason Li (2015) as a Panthers state champion.
Of the 22 players who moved on to the finals from Tom’s Run, seven are from the WPIAL.
Perhaps one of the bigger surprises is that Chartiers-Houston, which did not make it into the WPIAL team tournament, is the only school besides Sewickley Academy to send two players to the state championships. Senior Jack Hritsko finished third and senior Spencer Kane was one of four players in a five-way playoff for the final spot to advance.
Riverview senior Skyler Fox won WPIAL titles his first three years but has never won the state championship. His WPIAL string was broken by Aber this year.
Also of note will be Carmichaels junior Remmey Lohr, who will be the first female WPIAL finalist in the boys division. She finished second in the qualifier. Lohr was playing in the boys field because, since the Mikes don’t have a girls team, they could only have one representative in the WPIAL tournament, which went to her sister Delaney.
Delaney was eliminated from the girls Class 2A state finals at Tom’s Run after a 15th-place finish. Only the top 11 moved on.
Class 3A girls
North Allegheny has the reigning state champion Caroline Wrigley and, though the Furman freshman has moved on, the Tigers still have a legitimate chance of bringing the gold medal back to McCandless.
Senior Isabella Walter encored her WPIAL individual championship when she shot a 5-over 77 at Tom’s Run to tie for the regional title with Peters Township senior Ella McRoberts. Both will be making their first appearances in the event, though Walter has held a trophy on the course twice previously as a member of North Allegheny’s backto-back state championship teams in 2017-18.
Only five of the 10 regional qualifiers advanced and, outside of Walter and McRoberts, Uniontown sophomore Adena Rugola was the only other from the WPIAL to move on. Rugola did not even make it through the sectionals as a freshman.
A player from the WPIAL has won the title each of the past three years. In addition to Wrigley, Lauren Freyvogel of Pine-Richland (2017) and Mia Kness of Peters Township (2016) won state titles.
Class 2A girls
North Catholic’s Madie Smithco opened the door to a new titlist when she dropped out of the WPIAL finals because of illness. Smithco, a twotime champion, was looking to join Greensburg Central Catholic alumna Olivia Zambruno as a three-time state champion. And another Zambruno could step in.
Meghan Zambruno will be making her second consecutive appearance in the state finals after a third-place finish a year ago. And she has probably seen her toughest competition up close as 2018 runner-up Lydia Swan of North East won the regional at Tom’s Run with a 2 over that beat the Centurions sophomore by five strokes.
Of the 11 qualifiers, five were from the WPIAL including this year’s champion, freshman Eva Bulger of Quaker Valley.