Gypsum – Ashley Tait was seeing red.
After opening with a 70, the only score in red figures Monday at the Cotton Ranch Club, Tait entered the final round of the Class 4A girls state golf tournament with a six-shot lead on four other players in the field.
It was much the same Tuesday, as Tait – looking to join Cherry Creek’s Lynn Ann Moretto as the only other three-time state champion – again proved why she will be remembered as one of the state’s best with a 71. The Mullen star’s two-round total of 3-under-par 141 was 10 shots better than second-place finisher Kristin Walla of Aspen.
“I wanted to go out my senior year with a bang,” said Tait, who is headed to Tulane University.
Tait, along with teammates Maggie Boberg, Sasha Podolak and Jennifer Ingrum, helped the Mustangs to their fifth straight team title, winning all five since the two classifications split in 2001. Pueblo South finished second, five shots back at 515, and Fleming was third at 541.
“Ultimately this is the end result for them, in terms of how their overall season would be judged,” Mullen coach Kate Walker said. “It’s been a difficult two days, in terms of the course and the conditions, and for them to maintain their composure and for them to perform under that sort of pressure says a lot about them.”
Tait’s second round got off to an inauspicious start. An awkward sidehill lie in the rough, just one of two fairways she missed all day, on No. 1 was followed by a shot that just crawled out of the hazard. A bogey dropped her to 1-under and gave her competition a glimmer of hope.
Tait was staring at another bogey on the par-3 third after a muffed chip left her 18 feet downhill for par. She made that, and any unsettled nerves Tait may have had were calmed.
“That putt was huge,” said Tait, whose father, Pat, is the tournament director at Raccoon Creek. “I was never really worried, but I didn’t play like I was ahead. I tried to treat it like it was Day One all over again and like we were all in the same boat.”
Tait would make three more birdies on the back side as the wind began to pick up, offset only by consecutive three-putt bogeys on Nos. 14 and 15.
Walla got as close as five shots through the first six holes, but the one hole Cotton Ranch head professional Sean Riley said would cause problems, the par-4 seventh, jumped up and bit the Aspen senior. A drive right into the junk led to a triple bogey, and a five-shot deficit became eight.
“Like my dad (John Walla) said midround, you can’t really be upset getting beat by somebody that is playing that good,” said Walla, bound for the University of Texas. “Ashley just went out there and played her best and blew the field away.”
Said Cheyenne Mountain’s Karen Wanersdorfer, who played both days with Tait: “She’s such a consistent player, I knew after the first day no one else had a chance. Somebody would have had to have gone really low, with like a 66, and in these conditions that’s tough.”
Broomfield’s Stefanie Ferguson and Pueblo South’s Sarah Ruybalid finished tied for third at 153. Wanersdorfer rounded out the top five at 154.
Jon E. Yunt can be reached at 303-820-5446 or jyunt@denverpost.com.
