The Michigan High School Athletic Association Girls Golf State Championships (MHSAA) were held at four locations last month.
In Division 1 the ladies competed at Bedford Valley Golf Club outside of Battle Creek. The top-ranked teams heading into the state championship were 1. Northville, 2. Brighton, 3. Rochester Adams.
Both Division 2 and 3 State Championships were held at MSU’s Forest Akers West Course. South Lyon, Farmington Hills Mercy and Byron Center were the top three ranked teams in Division 2 heading to the finals. Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood, Macomb Lutheran North and Grosse Ile were the top three schools for Division 3.
Division 4 headed to The Meadows at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids. No. 1 ranked Jackson Lumen Christi, No. 2 Adrian Lenawee Christian and No. 3 Kalamazoo Christian led the field.
Results:
Division 1
Rochester Adams was the victor in the MHSAA Girls Division 1 State Team Championship. They did it the old-fashioned way by beating four-time state champ, as well as No. 1 ranked Northville, plus No. 2 ranked Brighton.
The Adams Girls had a commanding 15-shot lead over Brighton and 18-shot lead over Northville after the first round. Adams kept the foot on the gas in the second round and won by a 47-stroke margin over Brighton. Rochester High School finished third and Northville was fourth.
Grand Blanc senior, Kate Brody won the MHSAA Girls Championship as a sophomore in 2020 and added a second state championship title to her resume this year. She fired a two-day total of 145 at Bedford Valley to end her high school career before heading to the University of Wisconsin next year.
Brody finished one shot ahead of runner-up Elise Fennell from East Kentwood and four better than Grace Wang, from Rochester Adams and Rockwood’s Jessica Jolly, who both tied for third.
Division 2
Farmington Hills Mercy Girls Golf Team had won two MHSAA State Championships and had finished runner-up two other times in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, but had not been a factor in the state tournament for the past 20 years.
Head Coach Vicky Kowalski acknowledged that today’s girls high school golfers shoot a lot lower scores than back in those days, when Mercy was an annual power in Michigan girls golf.
Mercy held a 10-stroke lead after the first round and their two-day total of 684 was 27 shots better than runner-up South Lyon, who had been ranked No. 1 ahead of Mercy and was the defending MHSAA State Champion.
In the individual segment of the tournament, junior Macie Elzinga, from Byron Center became the first MHSAA State Champion in her school’s history. She began the final round with a one-shot lead over two-time MHSAA State Champ, from South Lyon, Gabby Tapp. Tapp was seeking her third state title in the last four years, but Elzinga’s final round 76 was good enough to finish five shots ahead of Tapp for the title.
Division 3
Macomb Lutheran North found themselves tied atop the leaderboard in Division 3 with Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood after the first round of play. In the second and final round the Macomb ladies bettered their first-round score by four shots to win by six shots over Bloomfield Hills. Grosse Ile finished third. Grand Rapids South Christian and Grand Rapids Catholic Central rounded out the top five.
Lauren Timpf, a junior, fired two rounds of 70-72 to lead Macomb Lutheran North to take Division 3 honors for the second consecutive year. Grosse Ile senior, Lily Bargamian finished runner-up, seven shots back of Timpf. Hannah Robinson, from Charlotte, was third, Grand Rapids Catholic Central sophomore Ava Wisinski and Grand Rapids Christian freshman, Lillian O’Grady tied for fourth.
Division 4
Four years ago Jackson Lumen Christi only had two golfers on their girl’s golf team, but now they are the Division 4 MHSAA Champions. In 2022 the team won six of the nine team events in which they competed and finished runner-up in the other three. They were the top ranked team heading into the MHSAA State Championship and proved their ranking to be well deserved, winning by a total of 23 strokes over second place Adrian Lenawee Christian.
In the individual portion of Division 4, Mia Melendez from Ann Arbor Greenhills won the MHSAA state title with a 149 total. One shot back, Logan Bentley of Columbia Central finished second, Grace Slocum of Traverse City St. Francis was third, Mackenzie Goudreau and Natalie Kellogg both from Montague were fourth and fifth respectively.
Congratulations to all the competitors in the 2022 MHSAA Girls State Golf Championship.
