Marissa Balish and Olivia Zambruno Win WPIAL Girls Golf

By: HSSN Staff
Tuesday, October 6, 2015 | 6:18 PM

Olivia Zambruno of Greensburg Central Catholic repeated as WPIAL Class AA champ while Marissa Balish of Hampton captured gold in Class AAA Tuesday afternoon at the Rolling Hills Country Club in McMurray. Both won in convincing fashion with with Balish shooting at 1-over par 73 and winning by three strokes while Zambruno shot a 3-over par 75 to win by five strokes.

It was the first district crown for the senior Balish while the junior Zambruno won for a second straight year. Balish is a member of the Talbots boys golf team since the girls do not have a team at Hampton. Zambruno did the same thing last year for the Centurions, but this year, a girls team was added at Greensburg Central Catholic.

Three of the seven PIAA AAA qualifiers are freshman, including Christina Lewis of North Allegheny and Laurel Freyvogel of Pine-Richland, who finished tied with Maddy McDanel of Central Valley for second place with rounds of 77. NA’s Caroline Wrigley was the other 9th grader to qualify after she finished fifth with a 79. In all, three Tigers, including Megan Leto, earned a spot from the WPIAL for the event at Toms Run in two weeks.

2014 Class AAA runner-up Johnna Beehner of Gateway was attempting to qualify for the PIAA Regional for the fourth time in her career, but she finished tied for 13th place with an 85.

In Class AA, Marissa Kirkwood of Neshannock finished in second place with a score of 81, five strokes back. The daughter of Lancers baseball coach Mike Kirkwood pulled to within three strokes of the lead after 15 holes, but lost two more strokes as Zambruno parred out the final three holes. 

Seven of the 33 Class AAA golfers qualified for the PIAA Western Regional on October 19th at Toms Run Golf Course in Blairsville, while there were eight spots available for the eight Class AA golfers providing you were able to shoot 100 or under. Seven of the eight AA golfers were able to do keep their score in double digits to qualify.

Here are the final totals with the PIAA Western Regional qualifiers in bold.

CLASS AA FINAL RESULTS:

Tags: Greensburg C.C., Hampton