Phoenixville sophomore Roberts wins 3-way battle for PAC individual championship
NEW HANOVER >> It was more of a minor inconvenience than a deal-breaker.
That was the consensus of the players in the lead threesome of Tuesday’s Pioneer Athletic Conference Individual Tournament. A one-hour weather delay — a meteorological cocktail of rain, thunder and lightning — interrupted play one hour into the action at Gilbertsville Golf Club, bringing the 38 competitors off the course and under cover until it passed.
It didn’t, however, impact a close duel for the league championship between Owen J. Roberts’ Stefania Fedun, Phoenixville’s Kate Roberts and Spring-Ford’s Nicole Yun. They took it in stride, adopting the appropriate mindset and resuming their high level of play.
Roberts came out on top, the Phantom sophomore shooting a three-over-par 74 to finish one stroke ahead of Yun (75). Fedun, the PAC’s defending individual champion, was another stroke back in third at 76.
“The way I did it was to run the course in my head,” Roberts, who set the tone with a 35 on the front nine including a birdie on No. 4, said. “I ran through it and stayed calm. I just played it similar to before.”
Yun, two strokes off Roberts’ pace on the front nine, took a different approach to the restart.
“I just felt like I was starting a new round,” she noted. “I just warmed up and adjusted to everything.”
Fedun, the front-nine leader carding a 35, also went cerebral to a degree in her return to action.
“I tried to not think about it. I worked to get back into my mindset,” she said. “I took a couple practice swings and got back to it.”
Roberts admitted a couple fairways on Gilbertsville’s White course proved challenging: The seventh because of a treeline along the fairway, and the second due to an early dogleg. But she saw considerable improvement over the 2020 tournament, when she carded an 83.
“I got off to a bad start there,” Roberts recalled. “I thought about that, and other tournaments I played recently. I focused on those, and what I did well then.”
Yun had just posted a birdie prior to the weather stoppage. She admitted she thought “I lost my mojo.”
“My putting was two-sided,” Yun said. “My long putts were good, but my short ones weren’t.”
Fedun had issues with her putting game similar to those of Yun.
“My putting was good long,” she said. “I was missing 6s because I didn’t control the speed. The longer putts, I was able to control the speed.”
Sarah Lawrie was Methacton’s top finisher, the senior coming in fourth at 79. Upper Merion’s Audrey Schuebel and Spring-Ford’s Morgan Kunze tied for fifth at 80, Schuebel posting a better back nine (39-43) to counter Kunze’s front-nine advantage (37-41).
The remainder of the Top 10 – all players shot sub-90 rounds — were Perkiomen Valley’s Abigail McCorkell (84), Spring-Ford’s Alie Adams (87) and UM’s Amanda Schuebel (88) and Anaka Villavalam (89),
Boyertown’s top finishers were Larissa Sontingco and Madeline Brennan, who were a respectively 20th and 21st. Pottsgrove’s Charlotte Pihanich was 36th, and Hatboro-Horsham’s Sammy Fuchs made the district cut with a 16th-place 96.
Spring-Ford finished as team champion with a score of 242, ahead of Phoenixville (271). The scoring was based on the teams’ top three finishers: Yun, Kunze and Adams for the Rams; Roberts, Chelsea Frampton (90) and Mackenzie Thompson (107) for the Phantoms.
“If we want to be a competitive team, we have to be better,” SF head coach John Brennan said. “I look at where we are, with four district qualifiers, and where we were a few years ago.
“We still have unfinished business. We want to put our team on the map, having other people look out for our team.”
NOTES >> The top 16 placers qualify for the District 1 Tournament, scheduled for next Tuesday (Oct. 5) at Turtle Creek Golf Course. “I made the district cut last year,” Roberts recalled. “but finished with an 80. I’m using that this year as motivation to do better.” … Spring-Ford and Phoenixville will face off again today in a PAC dual at Turtle Creek. The Rams (9-0) are shooting for an unbeaten league season.
PAC Individual Tournament
At Gilbertsville G.C. (par-71)
(Top 16 qualify for District 1 championship)
Tuesday’s Results
1. Kate Roberts, Phoenixville, 74
2. Nicole Yun, Spring-Ford, 11, 75
3. Stefania Fedun, Owen J. Roberts, 76
4. Sarah Lawrie, Methacton, 79
5. Audrey Schuebel, Upper Merion, 80
6. Morgan Kunze, Spring-Ford, 80
7. Abigail McCorkell, Perkiomen Valley, 84
8. Alie Adams, Spring-Ford, 87
9. Amanda Schuebel, Upper Merion, 88
10. Amala Villavalam, Upper Merion, 89
11. Alyssa Schuebel, Upper Merion, 90
12. Chelsea Frampton, Phoenixville, 90
13. Cierra Griffith, Spring-Ford, 90
14. Olivia Savochka, Owen J. Roberts, 93
15. Sofia Killar, Perkiomen Valley, 95
16. Sammy Fuchs, Hatboro-Horsham, 96
