Future is bright for WPIAL golf
Tri-State Sports & News Service
If this season were any indication, 2018 might be one of the best years for individual boys golf in Class 3A in a long time.
As a senior, WPIAL champion Chris Sabol of Moon is one of the few among the PIAA Western regional qualifiers who won’t be back next season. A total of 10, including alternate Amani Dambrosio of Fox Chapel, out of the 15 golfers who made the cut are either sophomores or juniors.
Dambrosio even had the opportunity to play in the state qualifier after his teammate and 2016 WPIAL champion, junior Gregor Meyer, was forced to withdraw because of injuries sustained in a car accident on the eve of the WPIAL Class 3A team championships.
Among the players who will be back are WPIAL runner-up Brady Pevarnik of Latrobe, who lost to Sabol in a playoff, but like the Moon senior, just missed the cut at the qualifier at Tom’s Run. Also returning will be Franklin Regional junior Palmer Jackson, who was third in the WPIAL and was the state runner-up by just one stroke in the two-day tournament at Heritage Hills in York.
Another player to watch is Pine-Richland’s Donnie Professori, the only WPIAL sophomore to compete in the state championships.
As far as the team finals, it may very well depend on how quickly Fox Chapel’s players recover from their injuries. The Foxes would have been among the favorites to win the WPIAL title, but without four of their best players, their junior varsity finished at the bottom of the six-team field.
Even if those players recover, two-time defending champion Central Catholic will be tough to beat. The Vikings, too, have a solid group returning led by juniors Jimmy Meyers and Neal Shipley, both of whom finished in the top 5 at the state finals.
Class 2A boys
Riverside sophomore Skyler Fox keeps impressing at the WPIAL level, but is still chasing an elusive state championship.
In his second trip to the finals, Fox came in fifth, five shots behind champion Chase Miller of Tupelhocken. Though it was a respectable finish for most, he has set the bar extremely high after winning titles his freshman and sophomore years. He is one of only 10 players in history to win consecutive individual championshipsand only two other competitors, Ron Schwartzel of Brentwood (1952-54) and Fox Chapel’s Frank Fuhrer III (1974-76) have ever won three in a row since the sport was first included in 1938.
Though he finished third among WPIAL players in the state championship, the two who beat him, Hunter Donahue of McGuffey and Christian Sadler from Bentworth, are both seniors.
Class 3A girls
Next season will have an interesting twist in the WPIAL Class 3A tournament. And maybe even in the sectionals depending on where teams end up following the PIAA biennial realignment.
North Allegheny junior Caroline Wrigley will enter the season as a two-time defending WPIAL champion. But if the sections are realigned, there is a possibility she may have to face reigning state titlist Lauren Freyvogel of Pine-Richland in section matches.
Currently the two only see each other in the individual and team tournaments as North Allegheny is in Section 4 and Pine-Richland in Section 1. But it would be easy — and geographically viable — to potentially switch Mars for North Allegheny or Kiski Area for Pine-Richland to pit the two teams against each other in the regular season.
Class 2A girls
The PIAA usually waits until its realignment year to make any drastic changes to the way it handles champions, but this year there was a major change in scoring in girls golf and it decided the 2A team title.
In previous years, the teams played with five girls and the lowest score was tossed out so only the top four counted toward the total strokes. This year, the PIAA allowed five players to participate, but only the top three scores counted.
It wouldn’t have made a difference in Class 3A as North Allegheny still would have won, but it would have been by 19 shots over District 10 Villa Maria Academy instead of by 18 over District 1 Mount St. Joseph’s.
But it would have changed everything in Class 2A.
Sewickley Academy was the No. 2 finisher in the WPIAL and won the state final, 244-252 in part because Tatum McKelvey shot a 5 under that was 12 strokes better than Greensburg Central Catholic’s No. 1 Abby Zambruno. But had the scoring been the same as in 2016, then the Panthers would have to include a 110 from Lexie Bosetti that was 14 shots off the 96 of the Centurions’ Olivia Stawovy.
Had the scoring system not changed, Greensburg Central Catholic would have won the state title with a 348 and Sewickley Academy would have finished with a 354.