‘No idea that I’d won.’ Henry Clay golfer rallies to region crown; LCA claims team title.

With family, friends and fellow competitors all around, Henry Clay’s Kylah Lunsford figured out about where she was on the Region 9 Championship leaderboard as she approached the 16th hole at the University Club at Arlington on Tuesday.

“And I just tried to stay calm,” said Lunsford, who immediately pushed such thoughts out of her mind again.

So Lunsford didn’t know her two-putt par on the 18th hole wrapped up the individual region title and secured her place in next week’s KHSAA State First Round Girls Golf Tournament.

“I came to the back nine and I had a mindset to finish it out good,” Lunsford said. “So I tried not to bogey. I tried to play it as safe as I could. And I did. I shot 2-under on the back.”

Lunsford, a junior, finished as the only golfer under par with a 1-under 71 on Arlington’s 5,689-yard, par-72 layout. She’ll be joined at Winchester Country Club next week by teammate EP Cassidy whose 11-over round of 83 made her one of the nine other individual qualifiers outside the top two teams in Friday’s tournament.

Lexington Christian captured the team championship by one stroke over defending champion Lexington Catholic. The top three, LCA, LexCath and defending state champion Madison Central, finished one shot apart with four-golfer combined scores of 308, 309 and 310, respectively. Only two teams advance to state out of each region..

Last year, Lunsford lost out on the individual region title in a playoff with two others. This year, she started her round with a three-putt bogey at the first hole and was 2-over par after eight. She birdied the par-5 ninth, par-5 12th and par-4 15th holes to take the lead down the stretch.

“It’s pretty special and very exciting, and I had no idea that I’d won when I got to this hole,” she said. “I came with a goal to win or top three and I achieved it,” Lunsford said. “I’m very happy.”

Senior helps rally LCA to the title

Like Henry Clay’s Lunsford, Lexington Christian senior C.A. Carter had a front nine she’d like to forget. Carter stood at 4-over par after eight holes, including a double bogey on the sixth, and the Eagles’ hopes for a state berth looked grim.

“It was not the best front nine, but my dad looked at me and he told me that my team was playing really well and that I just needed to get on a run,” Carter said. “And that’s exactly what I did.”

The senior University of Kentucky commit birdied nine, 12 and 14 to get herself and her team back into contention.

A wayward tee shot right on 17 narrowly avoided the water hazard and left Carter with a tough pitch back toward the green with tree limbs overhead and a bunker uphill in front of her. Carter’s second shot skidded low and came to rest safely on the front apron of the green. Her chip then left a 6-foot putt uphill.

“I was just trying to put myself back in position,” Carter explained. “I felt so confident in my short game that if I could just put myself in the short stuff that I could get up and down.”

She made the par putt at 17 and set up a makeable birdie putt on 18 that would mean the difference between first place or a playoff for first place. She sank that one too.

“I felt really good on 18. I kind of knew it was going in,” she said. “They were both huge for our team.”

Carter finished at even par and placed third after the scorecard tiebreaker with Madison Central’s Haley Federspiel.

Carter’s teammates also notched birdies over the last two holes — Grace Soale on 17 and Caroline Lankford on 18 — as the Eagles rallied to the front of the team standings. The combined scores of Carter (72), Soale (77), Caroline Lankford (77) and Carter Lankford (82) made up the winning 308 total with fifth player Lila Bard’s 85 thrown out.

“We’re a young team this year, so our expectations were ‘go play and see how the day goes,’” said LCA coach Matthew Soale, whose daughter and Bard are both freshmen. Carter Lankford is a sophomore and Caroline Lankford is in seventh grade. “I’m just super proud of our team. … They just played their butt off, and we got a victory out of it.”

LCA finished third in last year’s regional, missing out on sending the whole team to state. C.A. Carter and Carter Lankford were the only two team members to advance as individual qualifiers.

“I feel like going into this year our team was kind of an underdog, so just to finish it out for our girls and to have such a good back nine it meant the world to me my senior year to get us to the (state) first round. We’re ready,” Carter said.

Lexington Catholic returns to state as runner-up

LexCath senior Kariann Campbell heard whispers as she approached the 18th green and knew her putt would be important for the Knights.

“No one told me, but everyone started whispering when I walked up, so I was like, ‘Oh, Lord. Here we go,” Campbell said.

Campbell’s par putt hit the pin and stuck in to help the Knights finish as region runner-up and send them to state for the second year in a row.

Madison Central sending four to state

Though Madison Central will not have a chance to defend its team state title because of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s golf format, the Indians will send four of their five golfers to the State First Round as individual qualifiers — Federspiel, who finished second overall with a 72, Mollie Neeley, 78, Mackenzie Federspiel, 79, and Aubrey Barrow, 81.

Tested against the best

Many of Tuesday’s competitors competed in last weekend’s 2023 Girls All State Championship at the University Club of Kentucky.

The top-flight postseason tune-up features 15 of the best teams and 21 of the best individual golfers outside those teams for a two-day, 36-hole test over the U Club’s Big Blue and Wildcat courses on Saturday and Sunday.

Henry Clay’s Lunsford finished third and LCA’s Carter finished sixth in a field that included All State champion Keira Yun of Sacred Heart and defending state champion and 2022 Miss Golf Trinity Beth of Marshall County, who finished fifth.

Sacred Heart won the All State team title by 22 strokes over second place Marshall County. Lexington Catholic’s team finished third.

Girls Golf Region 9 Championship results

Top finishers and state qualifiers: 1. Kylah Lunsford, Henry Clay, 71; 2. Haley Federspiel, Madison Central, 72*; 3. C.A. Carter, Lexington Christian, 72*; 4. Kariann Campbell, Lexington Catholic, 75; 5. Channing Hagen, Lexington Catholic, 76*; 6. Georgia Scott, Lexington Catholic, 76*; 7. Caroline Lankford, Lexington Christian 77*’ 8. Grace Soale, Lexington Christian, 77*; 9. Claudia Logan, Franklin County, 78*; 10. Mollie Neeley, Madison Central, 78*; 11. Mary Clayton Rodgers, Franklin County, 79*; 12. Mackenzie Federspiel, Madison Central, 79*; 13. Kasey Cameron, Madison Southern, 79*; 14. Emerson Bowling, Franklin County, 80; 15. Aubrey Barrow, Madison Central, 81; 16. Macy Cecil, Lexington Catholic, 82*; 17. Catherine Lankford, Lexington Christian, 82*; 18. EP Cassidy, Henry Clay, 83.

* Ties broken according to KHSAA scorecard rules.

Top 10 teams: 1. Lexington Christian 308; 2. Lexington Catholic 309; 3. Madison Central 310; 4. Franklin County 331; 5. Woodford County 352; 6. Madison Southern 364; 7. Henry Clay 366; 8. Frederick Douglass 374; 9. Lafayette 408; 10. Frankfort 412.

Complete results: https://www.golfgenius.com/pages/9899982614234668046

Girls Golf State Championships

First Round at Winchester Country Club

▪ Monday, Sept. 25

Final Round at Bowling Green Country Club

▪ Oct. 2-4