Reilly has strong showing at tourney

01:42 PM EDT on Wednesday, July 30, 2008

By CAROLYN THORNTON
Journal Sports Writer

CRANSTON — Kibbe Reilly’s performance yesterday may not have been wrapped up in quite the same excitement as last year, when she opened this tourney with a career-best 71, but it still got the veteran golfer off to another terrific start at the Rhode Island Women’s State Amateur Championship, hosted by the Ocean State Women’s Golf Association.

Two days after capturing top honors among the women at the OSWGA’s inaugural Tournament of Champions at Lincoln Country Club, Reilly fired a 3-over-par 74 en route to capturing medalist honors for the second year in a row at the 14th annual tournament, which featured a field of 47 at Cranston Country Club.

Especially given the windy conditions, “I wasn’t thinking about a number per se, I was really focused on one shot at a time,” said Reilly, a member at Agawam Hunt, who was 1-over on the front nine with the help of birdies on holes 5 and 8 and then parred seven out of nine holes to finish 2-over on the back side. “I know it’s boring; it’s what everybody says. But that is truly what I was thinking about; not really thinking about numbers too much. … I was playing pretty well there (on the front nine). It was really just maintaining composure on the back side, trying to hit smart shots.”

Samantha Morrell, who successfully defended her R.I. Interscholastic girls state title a couple of months ago, was right behind Reilly at 75.

“I was hitting the ball really well,” said Morrell, who will begin her final year at North Kingstown this fall. “I only had, like, one bad iron shot all day. ... I just couldn’t get the putts to go in. If even half of mine went in or a quarter of them, I could be under par today, but they just weren’t going in.”

Two other young golfers in Reilly’s foursome also shot well enough to qualify for the Championship Division, including Juliet Vongphoumy, who has been grabbing the headlines lately after becoming the first female to win the Rhode Island Interscholastic League individual golf title at this course in May and then consequently became the first female golfter to qualify for the R.I. Golf Association Amateur Championship. The youngest competitor in the field at 15, the soon-to-be La Salle Academy sophomore finished at 77, as did recent Lynn University-grad Amanda Sabitoni, who was last year’s runner-up behind Ally Caffrey.

Former Bay View star Robyn English, who is continuing her golf career at Georgetown, followed at 78, while Alexandra King, a former Toll Gate All-Stater who just finished her first year at Saint Leo University in Florida, shot a 79.

Making her debut at the tournament, 16-year-old Ali Prazak, who lives in the Virgin Islands and spends her summers with family in Tiverton, earned one of the final spots in the top division, shooting an 80, along with Meghan Doherty, a graduate of Westerly High School, who is now attending Holy Cross.