SCH golf finally encounters better weather

Posted 4/16/18

Alison Gerhard, a Blue Devils junior, looks to finish up her round with this putt. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher The unruly weather early this spring has pushed back the official start of …

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SCH golf finally encounters better weather

Posted

Alison Gerhard, a Blue Devils junior, looks to finish up her round with this putt. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

The unruly weather early this spring has pushed back the official start of Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s golf season, but the girls finally got out on the course for an Inter-Ac League match last Wednesday afternoon.

On this side of the Schuylkill, fellow Inter-Ac members Penn Charter and Germantown Academy do not field girls’ golf teams, and the league teams from the Main Line are usually very competitive.

The SCH Blue Devils found this out on their home course at Sunnybrook Golf Club on Wednesday, when they succumbed to the Episcopal Academy Churchwomen, 220-255. Episcopal improved to 2-0, having previously defeated Agnes Irwin.

In regular league contests, four foursomes (each with two players from each school) play nine-holes rounds, and then the top five individual scores on each side are added up to arrive at the team totals.

For SCH junior Kara Kniezewski, a Norwood Fontbonne Academy graduate, golf has replaced basketball as her primary sport over the last few years. Last Tuesday she was playing on her own in the first group of golfers, and turned in the Blue Devils’ top score of 44 on Sunnybrook’s par-36 front nine.

SCH junior Abby Duncan focuses on getting out of a bunker on the ninth green. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

In the same group EA senior Marykate Chambers shot a 45, but freshman Lauren Jones came in with the best round of the day, a two-over 38. Jones was already playing on Episcopal’s varsity squad last spring as an eighth-grader.

All of these scores were counted in the team tally, but out of the second foursome, only one round for each team made the cut. Ninth-grader Emma Schotsch contributed a 45 for the Blue Devils, and sophomore Amanda Jones (Lauren’s sister) turned in a 46 for the Churchwomen.

The two SCH 11th-graders in the third group, Abby Duncan and Alison Gerhard, reached the clubhouse with a 49 and a 52, respectively. One of their companions, visiting freshman Kathleen Mark, improved Episcopal’s position with a round of 44.

Each team now had four of its five official scores in the books, and the Churchwomen were leading 173 to 190. In the last foursome, visiting junior Camilla Stapleton locked in EA’s final winning score with her 47, and the tally for SCH was completed by a 65 from senior Grace Lagaie.

The other golfers who competed as part of the young Springside Chestnut Hill squad were freshman Anne Harrower and seventh-grader Isabella Decesare.

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