Penn-Trafford girls golf team ready to roll

By: Paul Schofield
Sunday, August 11, 2024 | 11:01 AM

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Things haven’t started as planned for the Penn-Trafford girls golf team.

Their first two matches of the season – against Greensburg Central Catholic and Connellsville – were canceled to the dismay of coach Ed Herbst.

“We’re a young team and I want to see how they perform in a match,” Herbst said. “I just want to get started. I think we’ll be OK once we get into the season and the younger players feel comfortable in a match.”

Penn-Trafford finished 10-2 in Section 3 and reached the WPIAL Class 3A finals last year. They graduated four seniors from the team that started at Cedarbrook: Antolena Damico, Amanda Bobish, Erin Driscoll and Saylor Kaminski.

Damico reached the WPIAL individual finals and will continue her golf and musical career at Washington & Jefferson.

The Warriors return two starters — seniors Corryn Cigich and Marielle Wilson — and two part-time starters — junior Adalyn Hawk and sophomore Isabella Fontana.

Others Herbst is counting on this season are senior Dannica Wukich, senior Ayla Moffa and sophomore Kalina Maljan.

“I’m going to give everyone a chance to compete,” Herbst said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Herbst said he was pleased with offseason workouts at McDain’s Golf Center. He said that between eight and 10 girls showed up to work on their game.

“We graduated four seniors who started the past three seasons,” Herbst said.

Herbst said he expects Franklin Regional will be strong again, but he said don’t count out Hempfield, which placed third, and Norwin. Other teams in the section are Gateway, Elizabeth Forward and Connellsville.

“The biggest things we teach the girls is how the short game and putting can save you a lot of strokes,” he said. “It’s tough, but that part of the game comes with experience. We try to teach them how to read the greens. I just hope we teach them well enough to enjoy the game.”

Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.

Tags: Penn-Trafford