Girls Golf: 2011 West Season Recap

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

The 2012 golf season could have a decidedly different feel than the one experienced a year ago by the Central Valley High girls golf team.

Competing in Division II a year ago, the Warriors had the unenviable task of trying to derail Shady Side Academy when the two teams were among the six squads competing at the WPIAL girls golf championships. Central Valley advanced to the championship as the No. 2 Division II girls golf team along with first-round winner Penn Trafford and Kiski Area.

Shady Side Academy advanced as the top team in Division I along with Fox Chapel and Upper St. Clair. Shady Side Academy and Central Valley both won their respective team championships, but the hoisting of the WPIAL Division II championship trophy meant the end of the line for Central Valley as the PIAA was sponsoring regional and state championships strictly for Division I teams. To advance to the regional tournament at Tom's Run, the Warriors would have been required to defeat Shady Side Academy, and that's something no team in Division I accomplished in 2011.

Things, however, will be different in 2012.

The PIAA is sponsoring regional and state championship events for Division II teams. And that shapes up nicely for Central Valley, which returns its top five golfers for 2012. Four of them -- Macky Fouse, Jocelyn Sudar, Marissa Sudar and Daniela Battisti -- competed in the WPIAL Division II individual championships a year ago. Fouse and Marissa Sudar will be juniors in 2012. Jocelyn Sudar and Battisti will be seniors.

Count Fouse as someone who likes the idea of a Division II state championship.

"With a couple of freshmen coming up, we're going to be stronger," she said. "That's going to help us have a lower score overall. Having a Division II championship might create more interest in girls golf."

Against competitors from Division I, however, Fouse held her own. She qualified 11th at the WPIAL Individual Championships by tying Seton-LaSalle's Joey Walz and Penn Trafford's Haley Borkovich for third place with scores of 86.

Her game really took off at the Western Regional tournament as she placed fifth with a seven-over-par round of 79. The only Division II player to beat her at the Western Regional was since-graduated Emily Rohanna of Waynesburg Central. That finish qualified Fouse for the state tournament where she finished in a three-way tie for 16th place with a two-day total of 174.