It wasn’t over until it was over and it wasn’t over until the final putt. Hamilton senior Jennifer Seo lined up her birdie attempt from some 10 yards away, and two feet onto the fringe, and she hit it true to end her run at the Division I state championship held Monday and Tuesday at the Omni Tucson National with a 3-under-par 143. Still, it wasn’t over.

Seo’s teammate, Angela Chen, led the championship for almost 32 holes. Chen led by two strokes on the Catalina Course after the first round and she flirted with that lead the rest of the way but she could not shake Seo. A bogey on 15th hole, combined with a birdie on the same hole from Seo in the next group gave Seo a brief 1-stroke lead. Chen tied it back up with a birdie on the 17th but Seo birdied the 18th to put herself up by one. Chen’s approach shot on the 18th put her in position to send the two to a playoff round and she made her birdie to move the tournament back to the first hole.

As mentioned before, Seo made her shot to put the pressure back on Chen and Chen responded with a remarkable putt from about nine yards out that stopped just a couple of inches off target. On any other day, Chen’s shot would have been amazing in itself but the miss was the one stroke Seo needed to claim her second state championship in a row.

Seo is no stranger to a playoff at the state championship, having lost to former Liberty standout Mattie Frick in 2020, but the UCLA commit came right back to defeat Frick last year by four strokes. Seo became the first golfer to win back-to-back championships since former Xavier Prep standout Ashley Menne won three in a row from 2016 to 2018. Former Hamilton standout Joy Callinan beat Menne 135-136 in 2019 to prevent the current ASU standout from earning an unheard of four individual titles in a row. Callinan is playing for North Dakota and Frick for Illinois.

The back-and-forth with all the birdies from the Hamilton standouts also had an impact on the team competition with Xavier Prep coming back from a very slow start in the first round to take what looked like a late championship run on Tuesday but Seo and Chen paced the Huskies to a 631 to 635 victory over the Gators. Pinnacle took third with 636.

It was the first state championship for Hamilton since 2010 and came after four straight years of missing out on a team trophy by coming in third place. This is the first time a Division I team championship has been won by four different teams in a four-year stretch since 1975 to 1978 when Maryvale, Agua Fria, Alhambra and McClintock won. The main reason for that was the powerhouse on the horizon, Xavier Prep. The Gators took second place to McClintock in 1979 and then the dynasty of 37 championships in 41 years happened under Sr. Lynn Winsor and co-head coach Tui Selvaratnam.

Hamilton head coach Jackie Walker joined an exclusive club of five coaches able to defeat Xavier Prep in a state final and her team will come back for another challenge next year but without Seo. The trick to winning a team championship is to have a group of golfers play well together for two days and Chen will be the centerpiece along with two of the other top sophomores in the state in Lizzie Walls and Laura Seo. The Gators, however, have a whole group of juniors to draw upon including Kate Hauptman. At any rate, 2023 looks to be exciting already.

Medalists from right to left. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

TOP TEN MEDALISTS

1 Jennifer Seo (SR) Hamilton 73-70 143 -3 (playoff)

2 Angela Chen (SO) Hamilton 71-72 143 -3 

3 Brooke McGlasson (SR) Liberty 76-74 150

4 Samantha Olson (JR) Pinnacle 75-76 151

5 Carolyn Fuller (SR) Pinnacle 77-75 152

6 Kate Hauptman (JR) Xavier 78-75 153

7 Lauren Huddleston (SR) Boulder Creek 75-79 154

8 Allie Sullivan (SR) Mountain Ridge 81-75 156

8 Annie Dawson (SR) Xavier 78-78 156

10 Nikki Bowen (JR) Valley Vista 79-79 158

Xavier Prep. (Andy Morales/AZPreps365)

 

 TEAM SCORES

1 Hamilton 631

2 Xavier 635

3 Pinnacle 636

4 Boulder Creek 649

5 Liberty 656

6 O'Connor 727

7 Perry 729

8 Mountain Ridge 762

9 Mountain View Mesa 384

10 Desert Vista 791

11 Highland 799

12 Red Mountain 851

The Boys D-I State Championship starts on Wednesday on the Par 70 Sonoran Course at the Omni Tucson National. Hamilton will be playing for the fourth straight title for the program since 2019.