Girls Golf: 2011 South Season Recap

Sports Town will review the 2011-12 school year during July. Today we will revisit the golf season.

Upper St. Clair's girls golf team -- like everyone else -- ran into a buzz-saw in the form of the Shady Side Academy girls golf team. After placing third in the WPIAL Division I qualifying tournament with 392 strokes, 72 behind the winning effort posted by Shady Side Academy, the Panthers placed third in the WPIAL championship with 364 strokes.

The results were the same for the qualifying and championship events with Shady Side Academy taking top honors with 307 strokes, with Fox Chapel (363) and Upper St. Clair (364) trailing.

Peters Township did qualify for the team tournament, but the Indians were elimiated in the first round when they finished sixth with 403 strokes.

There were, however, some outstanding individual efforts recorded by South area golfers in 2011.

Perhaps the most compelling was the performance turned in by Seton-LaSalle freshman Joey Walz.

Competing in the Division II individual tournament, Walz finished in a third-place tie with Penn-Trafford's Haley Borkovich with rounds of 86 at the WPIAL Individual Championship at Longue Vue Club in Verona.

When combined with the Division I scores, Walz had qualified for the West Regional Tourmament at Tom's Run as the 10th overall finisher. It was the last time Division I and Division II competitors were combined for regional and state tournaments as Division II will have its own regional and state tournaments beginning in 2012.

At Tom's Run, Walz was the last qualifier for the state tournament as she was the 11th -- and final -- qualifier with a 14-over-par score of 86, 10 strokes behind Shady Side Academy's Kendall Allen, who won her fourth straight Wester Regional championship.

Walz, though, saved her best effort for last.

At the PIAA state championship at Heritage Hills in York, Walz shot rounds of 80 and 83 to finish seventh overall with a score of 163 that earned her All-State honors with a seventh-place finish. She has three more seasons to build upon an outstanding career as a high school golfer.