Cottonwood's Williams, Academy's Whitten and Haas win state golf titles
High school state golf champions could be found up and down the I-25 corridor on Tuesday. In Socorro, Albuquerque Academy’s girls won the Class 4A state title at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, and the Chargers produced both individual state champions. Down the road in Elephant Butte, Cottonwood Classical Prep eighth-grader Ariana Williams not only captured the Class 1A-3A title, but she ...
High school state golf champions could be found up and down the I-25 corridor on Tuesday. In Socorro, Albuquerque Academy’s girls won the Class 4A state title at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, and the Chargers produced both individual state champions. Down the road in Elephant Butte, Cottonwood Classical Prep eighth-grader Ariana Williams not only captured the Class 1A-3A title, but she demolished the field, winning by an incredible 19 shots at Turtleback Mountain Golf and Resort.
“I never really imagined it,” Williams said in a phone interview. “After Day 1 … (I knew) I had this opportunity to win it, but I just didn’t realize I’d win by 19 shots. If you had told me that before the first day, I’d be like, ‘that’s crazy’.
” Williams shot rounds of 79 and 76 for a 36-hole total of 155. Robertson senior Payton Woolf, at 174, was a distant second. In Socorro, freshman Thomas Whitten and junior Adelyn Haas won individual titles for Academy.
Whitten, who also plays baseball for Academy, was involved in the tightest of all the individual tournaments on Tuesday. At one point relatively late in the back nine, there were four boys tied for the lead at 5-over. Whitten birdied the par-5 16th hole, with a nice chip and a short putt, to get to 4-over, and that’s where he finished.