5A girls golf: Lehigh repeats, Valor Christian claims first team title

LOVELAND – For nearly every stroke of the 2022 Class 5A girls golf state championships, Loveland’s Katelyn Lehigh was a defending champion chasing a surprising state finals rookie amidst a tight pack of contenders.
 
But late in the second and final round on a slightly soggy day at The Olde Course at Loveland, Lehigh showed the state of Colorado why she was the champ in the first place.
 
Three strokes off the lead and in third place heading into the final nine holes of her high school career, Lehigh caught fire. She carded three straight birdies to cap a stretch of four in six holes and pulled ahead to finish with a 3-under 69 and a two-day score of 144 that earned her the title of repeat champion.
 
“Somehow, this one is even better,” Lehigh said. “If you would have asked me last year, I’d have said, ‘It couldn’t get any better than this.’ But here we are and I don’t have words again.”
 
The win matches the two titles Lehigh’s older sister, Lauren Lehigh, won in 2018 and 2019, giving the Lehigh sisters state titles in each of the past four contested seasons.
 

This one didn’t come easily.
 
Lehigh began the day three strokes behind Day 1 leader Elle Higgins of Valor Christian, who led for most of the first day and held that lead at the turn on Saturday. In the mix as usual was Prairie View senior Lily Nelson, who held the lead for several holes on the back nine and finished just one stroke behind Lehigh with a two-day score of 145. She claimed the runner-up spot for the second straight year.
 
Lehigh then birdied Nos. 13, 14 and 15 to pull ahead. Despite her torrid stretch, Lehigh still had to make a critical putt on No. 18 to avoid a playoff and walk away with the first-place medal.
 
“At the start of the day, I knew I had some work to do,” said Lehigh, who admitted she was possibly the most nervous she has ever been while lining up her final putt. “Back nine, I knew I had some work to do. And then there were three birdies in a row that just kind of flipped the switch and made the difference in the last round.”
 
Higgins finished third with a two-day score of 150. A junior, Higgins’ freshman season was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic and she missed her sophomore year because of a torn ACL she suffered during competitive mogul skiing season.
 
“I didn’t play as well as I did yesterday. It was mostly a lot of my putts just weren’t falling,” Higgins said. “But I’m really proud of how everyone finished and how everyone was staying in it no matter what. I was happy for the other two girls – Lily and Katelyn – because they were saying positive things the whole round. I was really happy because it was my first big tournament since my injury, so I’m happy with how I finished.”
 
Higgins may not have won the individual title, but she did lead the Valor Christian Eagles to their program’s first team championship.
 
The Eagles finished with a team score of 469, eight strokes ahead of runner-up and 2021 team champion Loveland. Higgins’ 150 led the team, freshman Brenna Higgins (fifth place) finished at 157, freshman Bella Eide (10^th place) shot a 162 and junior Carmen Carpinelli scored a 173.
 
Of the four, only Carpinelli had ever played at the state tournament prior to this season.
 
“The girls did an amazing job of buying into the idea of team golf,” Eagles head coach Justen Byler said. “We play an individual sport. But for two months of the year, they need to come together and figure out how that works. They relied on each other and Carmen Carpinelli, our junior who is the senior member or the team, led that vision and she did a fantastic job. While all of them scored all year round, they all understood that it doesn’t have to be any one girl on any given day and that they could trust one another and go out there and play with a level of freedom.
 
“They were a team and team golf is a lot more fun when you do that together.”
 
Cherry Creek finished third in the team competition with a score of 499. Rock Canyon was just behind the Bruins at 500. Mountain Vista was fifth at 515.
 
Individually, Mountain Vista junior Abby Aeschleman finished in fourth with a two-day score of 152. Cherry Creek freshman Caitlyn Chin posted a 155 to take fifth. Brenna Higgins’ 157 was good for fifth, followed by Fossil Ridge senior Olivia Steen’s seventh-place 158. Rock Canyon freshman Ashleigh Wilson scored 160 to place eighth and senior teammate Amira Badruddin was ninth at 161. Eide rounded out the top 10 with a score of 162.