A season ago, Baldwinsville girls golfer Katie Walsh finished 10th at the Section III championship tournament – the most painful spot possible, because it was one spot out of automatic qualification for the state championships, and so she had to serve as an alternate.
This time around, though, Walsh is going all the way.
A sensational back nine, capped by a near-perfect finish on the 18th hole, helped Walsh, a sophomore, zoom up to fourth place in Tuesday’s 2013 edition of the state tournament at Kanon Valley Country Club in Oneida.
On a hot, steamy morning, Walsh began with a so-so front nine of 46. Had she stayed on that pace, she would have finished out of the top 10, and any state tournament dreams would have faded again.
But Walsh seemed to heat up with the temperatures, going one over par on holes 10 through 17. Then, on the par-4 18th, she drove it in the fairway and stuck an approach just two feet from the hole on a severly undulating green. Then she sank the short birdie putt.
So that meant a back-nine 36, even par, and an overall score of 82 that moved her to that fourth spot, trailing only Auburn teammates Larissa Carter (75) and Lindsay May (76) and Jamesville-DeWitt’s Molly Hair (80).
This means that Walsh is going to the SUNY-Delhi course on June 7-9 for the state tournament, joining Carter, May, Hair, Kaitlin Hlywa (also from Auburn), Allison Donella (Fayetteville-Manlius), Victoria Roney (also from J-D), Brianna Sovring (Cicero-North Syracuse) and Amanda Snigel (Vernon-Verona-Sherrill).
As a team, B’ville had a total of 412, sixth among the seven Class A teams as Auburn (336) took the top spot, with F-M (361) in second place.
Marisa Foriero posted a round of 92, putting her in a tie for 19th place in the 97-player field. Freshman Emily Pascale shot 115, while Morgan Shibel shot 123 and eighth-grader Megan Foriero finished at 126.
Carter, with her victory, has qualified for the Symetra Tour’s Credit Union Classic on July 26-28 at Drumlins Country Club’s East course.