MIKE GROSS | Sports WriterManheim Township’s school board on Wednesday voted to create the first girls golf team in Lancaster-Lebanon League history.
The board approved a proposal by Athletic Director Tim Hollenback.
The new team’s first competition was Thursday, when Township played nine-hole matches against the Solanco and Pequea Valley boys teams at Tanglewood Manor Golf Club in Quarryville.
“We’re fortunate to have the amount of interest (in golf) we do,’’ Hollenback said Friday. “We’ve had girls on our boys team, they’re phenomenal players, probably around nine through 12 in our order.’’
In high school team golf, five players compete in matches, with the low four scores counting toward the team total.
“Having a girls team allows them to compete against their peers and show how good they really are,’’ Hollenback said. Township has a female golfer, Piper Smith, who won the L-L individual girls championship last year as a freshman. In team competition, she has been part of the varsity — or “boys’’ — team through her high school career until Thursday, and has the Blue Streaks’ second-best stroke average this season.
(When competing against boys, girls play from shorter tees.)
According to Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association rules, Smith must choose between the boys and girls teams, with the provision that if she stays with the boys, she must compete in the postseason against, and from the same tees as, the boys.
Smith did not play in the Township varsity’s final regular-season match Thursday, at Fairview, Cedar Crest’s home course. Township had already clinched the L-L Section One title, but finished second to Cedar Crest on Thursday.
The idea for a separate girls team was discussed in July, when Township had six girls competing in tryouts.
“We liked the idea, but we had to make sure all our ducks were in a row,’’ Hollenback said. That meant consulting with the PIAA, which said that pending approval by the Township school board, the girls team could compete in the District Three and PIAA state championships if it played a schedule of at least nine matches, the minimal number, by PIAA decree, needed for a “season.’’
Hollenback couldn’t begin scheduling the matches until the board vote, and they had to play nine to be eligible for the postseason.
The matches with Solanco and Pequea Valley were the first two of those, and Hollenback has scheduled nine-hole matches next week with Warwick (home and home), Lampeter-Strasburg, Cocalico and Lancaster Catholic, all against boys or mostly boys teams.
Several Township girls have competed as non-counting individuals in Mid-Penn Conference matches this month. Two of the Blue Streaks, Paisley Kappesser and Sonia Dumasia, finished first and second among the girls in a match hosted by Boiling Springs High at Mayapple Golf Links on Tuesday.
Maci Seibel, a teacher at Manheim Township High School, has been hired as head coach of the girls team, at a salary of $5,000. Chip Kappesser, Paisley’s father and the head professional at Bent Creek Country Club, will be a volunteer assistant coach. Todd Scolnick will stay on as boys coach.
The Blue Streaks will compete in the District Three girls team championship Oct. 6-7 at Honey Run Golf Club in York County, and attempt to qualify for the state championship, to be held Oct. 18 at Penn State University’s Blue Course.
