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Madeline Wharton, Alexis Wyandt and Allie Craig have spent the last month competing on what technically became co-ed teams in a primarily boys golf league.
This morning, beginning at 9 a.m. at Fox Hill Country Club, they get one of the few chances to test themselves to see who is the best in girls high school golf. They will be among the Wyoming Valley Conference players trying to qualify for spots in the Class 3A and 2A boys and girls District 2 individual tournaments to be played Oct. 12 at Elmhurst Country Club.
Wharton and Wyandt have excelled in this setting before.
Wyoming Area’s Wharton is the defending District 2 Class 2A girls champion. Wyandt, a Dallas senior, used the WVC qualifier and District 2 tournament last year to join Wharton in reaching the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association East Regional.
Craig, a sophomore, is a rising talent who spent the season as the clear number one player on the Pittston Area team.
Those three will be joined by players from Tunkhannock, the only WVC school with a separate girls team, and a handful of other co-ed team members for the conference qualifier.
“I do enjoy the individuals over everything else,” said Wharton, a fixture in the Wyoming Area lineup for league matches throughout her high school career. “It makes me focus a little bit more and it’s definitely, for me, a lot more serious than the matches.”
The timing of today’s tournament is a little difficult on Wharton, who has seen her scores go up in recent weeks, while trying to complete a transition in her game.
“I’m actually going through a full swing change,” said Wharton, who is considering playing in college depending on whether she can fit it in with pre-med studies. “I’m working on dropping my shoulder and pushing it through my swing for more compression.
“At the moment, I am a little bit of a mess, so hopefully we’ll be able to get through and post some good scores.”
If she can get past qualifying today in Class 2A where there is less overall depth from around the WVC, Wyandt will have two more weeks to sharpen her game for the title defense.
Wharton, Craig and Wyandt know each other from summers on the Anthracite Golf Association’s Lawler Junior Tour, where they placed third through fifth in this year’s Tournament of Champions.
When Pittston Area lost 2014 District 2 Class 3A boys champion Tyler McGarry and the rest of the lineup from a .500 team to graduation, Craig took on the burden of playing against every other team’s best players throughout a winless season for the Patriots.
Pittston Area coach Len Benfante offered Craig the opportunity to move down in the lineup and play in the same foursome as girls from opposing teams in some matches this season, but she declined, instead choosing to test herself against the league’s best boys players.
“She’s got tremendous potential,” Benfante said. “She hits it as well as any girl I’ve seen in 28 years.
“She goes after it.”
Craig, who has an advantage in driving distance over just about every girl she ever plays with, has room to refine her short game, in part, Benfante said, because she does not have to use it as often as the others. She is in position to reach more greens in regulation and with shorter clubs than the players she will be up against today.
The sophomore is trying to learn from her first high school girls tournament play. Craig believes she put too much emphasis on the tournaments last year, creating pressure that prevented her from playing her normal game.
“Obviously, it’s a really important tournament for me,” Craig said, “but I try not to get too excited about a tournament … All I’m trying to do is stay calm for my entire round.
“I’m just going for a walk and hitting some golf shots in between.”
Craig has worked on her game for six years, playing as often as she can in the summer at Pine Hills in Taylor and in tournaments as well as putting in time at the practice range.
Wyandt had only played a few times when she joined the Dallas team as a freshman. In the years since, she has taken the game much more seriously, heading to Irem Temple Country Club early almost every morning of the last three summers to play.
Shooting 88 to qualify for the PIAA East Regional last year was the senior’s proudest golf accomplishment. She pushed herself harder this summer, adding two Philadelphia Tour events and one Hurricane Tour event to her AGA schedule.
The league schedule in which she helped Dallas finish tied for second in Division 1 continued the development of her competitive game.
“There’s not a lot of girl golfers,” Wyandt said. “It’s a little bit more competitive and I feel like it prepares you to compete against the girls.”
The number of quality girls playing in the league has increased during her four-year career, making it harder to know what to expect today.
“We’re all really close in scores,” Wyandt said.
In addition to the girls Wharton, Craig and Wyandt have come across on occasion in league matches, there are players from Tunkhannock.
As the first and only girls program ever from the WVC, the Lady Tigers have played their own schedule the last three seasons. They won a tournament hosted by Mid Valley at Scott Greens this month and finished second out of eight teams at the season-opening Jackman Memorial Tournament at Scranton Municipal in August.
Tunkhannock reached a milestone for WVC girls golf last year when it edged North Pocono, 405-406, for the District 2 Class 3A team championship.
Emma Harding, who led that win with a 92 and shot 80 at this year’s Jackman Tournament, should be one of the individual contenders Monday.
Tunkhannock will be back at Scranton Muni on Tuesday for the district team title against North Pocono, as the Lady Tigers will be trying not just to win District 2, but also shoot 400 or better to qualify for state team play for the first time.
“That 400 has been our singular goal from the time we teed it up this summer,” said Tunkhannock coach Andy Neely, who has tried to convince others in the league to start a separate girls team.