In last year's Ohio High School Athletic Association girls golf state tournaments, four locals had top 10 finishes, including runner-up placements by Sophia Fink and Ellie Hartung in Division II and a fourth-place finish by former champion Eva Becerril in Division I.
Fink and Hartung nearly joined Becerril in the exclusive group of Greater Cincinnati golfers to win individual golf state championships.
Just how exclusive is that club? Check out the list here of each local golf state champion from Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The list of local boys golf individual champions will come in a future story.
Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky girls golf individual state champions
Bonnie Overman, Notre Dame (1980)
Notre Dame won four of the five Kentucky High School Athletic Association girls golf state championships from 1979 to 1983. The 1979 championship from the Pandas
was the first by a Northern Kentucky team and the next season Bonnie Overman led the Pandas to another title while also winning the area's first individual state championship.
Lori Oldendick, Boone County (1984)
Four seasons after Overman became the first Northern Kentucky girl to win an individual title, Boone County's Lori Oldendick became the most recent. Oldendick shot a 159 in the tournament at Elizabethtown Country Club to win.
Gabby Wedding, Wilmington (1999)
The 1999 OHSAA state tournament was just the seventh in Ohio for girls golfers. St. Ursula had already won team titles twice and Ursuline Academy picked up the championship that season, but Wilmington's Gabby Wedding was the first individual winner from Southwest Ohio.
Wedding, who led Wilmington to a sixth place team finish, shot a 155 and won a tiebreaker with Shaker Hathaway Brown's Katie Redeker for medalist honors.
Carling Coffing, Middletown (2001)
Two years after Wedding became the first winner, Middletown sophomore Carling Coffing dominated in the 2001 tournament to became the second local OHSAA winner. Coffing shot a 73 on the first day for a four-stroke lead entering day two. Coffing finished with a 147, winning the state championship by nine shots.
Emily Wright, Mason (2010)
In 2008, the OHSAA girls golf tournament split into two divisions. The Mason Comets won the first three Division I tournaments after the split and each of those teams featured Emily Wright. In 2010, Wright was a senior for the Comets and also picked up the individual championship along with her third team title.
Wright shot a 142 over two days, finishing in first by five shots. As a team, Mason shot a 611 and won by 24 shots.
Kellen Alsip, Sycamore (2015)
Cincinnati had the 1-2 punch in 2015 with Sycamore senior Kellen Alsip winning the Division I championship and Walnut Hills sophomore Katie Hallinan tying for second place. Alsip shot a 72 in the first round and followed with a 75 for a 147 total, two strokes better than the runner-up pair.
Katie Hallinan, Walnut Hills (2017)
After her runner-up finish as a sophomore, Katie Hallinan didn't compete in the 2016 state meet, but returned as a senior in 2017. In her final tournament, Hallinan shot under a 70 in both rounds (68-69) for a three-under par 137 and the Division I state championship.
Kylee Heidemann, Mercy McAuley (2022)
Kylee Heidemann of Mercy McAuley started the Division I state championship in 2022 by shooting a 72 in the opening round at the OSU Gray Course. Heidemann sat two shots behind the leader, Audrey Ryu of Dublin Jerome. On the final day, Heidemann shaved three shots off of her score from the previous day, carding a 69 and a 141 total to overtake Ryu by two shots for the state championship.
Eva Becerril, Sycamore (2024)
After finishing top 20 in the state as a freshman in 2022 and sophomore in 2023, Sycamore's Eva Becerril put it all together as a junior in 2024. Becerril shot a 75 and was tied for eighth after the opening round before shooting a 68, four shots better than any other golfer, on day two. She finished with a 143 final score, winning state by three shots.
Becerril's victory was the second by a Sycamore girls golfer, making the Aviators the only program to have multiple individual girls golf championships in Cincinnati.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Which Cincinnati, NKY girls golfers have won individual state titles?
