Double rally at Mill Creek tourney

By BRIAN DZENIS

bdzenis@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Sophia Sarrazin made an unlikely climb while Jackson Finney worked to retain what he lost.

The both proved their mettle on Thursday by winning the American Junior Golf Association’s Mahoning Valley Hospital Foundation Junior All-Star at Mill Creek North Golf Course. Both golfers rallied from behind to take first place.

“Going into today, I wasn’t expecting this. I finished my round, looked at the leaderboard and it says Sophia in first,” Sarrazin said. “It was really cool seeing how one good round can change the whole tournament.”

Sarrazin, a Westport, Conn., native, was as far down as 33rd place during the three-day tournament. A 1-under back nine on the second day put her seven strokes back of the leader, Kaia Wu of Princeton, N.J., and a 65 on Thursday where she didn’t shoot worse than even on any hole gave her the victory.

She birdied No. 6, 7, 10 and 11 to finish 4-over par with a score of 211.

“This is insane. It’s [my] biggest win ever,” Sarrazin said. “This is one of my bigger tournaments and I was 8-over coming into today and I just finished really well.”

Hong Kong’s Hoi Ki Lau and Emma Chen of Derwood, Md., tied for second. Wu’s final round had the same score as Sarrazin’s first, a 76. Like Sarrazin on Tuesday, Wu had five bogeys, two double bogeys and two birdies to finish tied for fourth place with Faith Johnson of Evansville, Ind.

Sarrazin says there’s a bit of a disadvantage to golfing in New England, where she spends three months practicing indoors during the winter. Connecticut also boasts just one division for high school girls golf.

“I have to travel more to get more competitive. If I shot seven-over in Connecticut, I could of won a tournament, but here, it’s totally different,” Sarrazin said. “People came here from all over world and that makes things much more competitive.”

Finney, of Louisville Ky., saw his two-stroke lead on the first day turn into a three-stroke deficit on Wednesday.

“After my second round — where I didn’t play well at all — I felt a lot less pressure than the first day,” Finney said. “I started hitting the ball a lot better and on the back nine, I just put a really good round together. It was a lot of fun.”

Finney shot a 65 with five birdies and a bogey for the second time in three days to finish 4-under par at 203. Andres Barraza of Parkland, Fla., dropped to second place by shooting a 71 to finish 1-under. Suneil Peruvemba of McLean, Va., was third by finishing 1-over.

Back home in Kentucky, Finney is looking to be a more permanent fixture in the lineup of his high school golf team.

Despite his talent and pedigree — his father, Mike, is the director of instruction at the University of Louisville Golf Club — he spent his freshman season at Louisville St. Xavier fighting for the No. 5 spot behind a Louisiana state commit, a Kentucky commit and a pair of undecided Division I recruits.

“[This win] makes me feel like I deserve to be there,” Finney said. “Hopefully, my coach sees this and show him that belong in that top four or three.”

As much achievements as the kids had on the course, Brian Tolnar, Mill Creek’s director of golf, was proud that the staff kept the course playable through heavy ran to complete the tournament.

The course’s staff was rewarded with a mild Thursday with some light showers. He even had a few of the maintenance workers pose for pictures with Sarrazin and Finney.

“It’s unbelievable we got everything in today. We were taking calls from streets all around the golf course saying how flooded things were,” Tolnar said. “When you look at the forecast for [Thursday] all-day it was about 90 to 100 percent chance of rain hour by hour.”

“We were here from 5 a.m. and the maintenance staff was here earlier than that and they were here to dark and our staff stayed until 11 p.m. each night,” Tolnar said.