The golf team won the state championship Oct. 25, beating rivals the Churchill Bulldogs by two strokes in the semifinal and seven in the final.

The team played the championship at the University of Maryland Golf Course from Oct. 23-25. Junior Amanda Levy—a standout player all season—led the team in the final, shooting a 73, nine strokes above the average of the field.

“I was really happy because Maryland’s a really hard course, so you never really know how you’re going to do on a given day,” Levy said. “I played well in the first round but not as well as I thought I could do, so when I came back in the second round and played way better than I thought, it was really exciting.”

The Whitman team dominated this postseason, winning the district championships, the County Scramble and the Bethesda Cup, a tournament against Walter Johnson and B-CC.

Last year, the team placed second at the state championship, losing to Churchill by 18 strokes. After battling the team back and forth this season, Whitman ended four strokes better than their rival overall in the regular season. Going into this tournament, winning the title was always part of the Vikes’ plan.

“It was our goal the whole season, so it was really exciting for us to achieve that,” Levy said.

In the state tournament, instead of playing for their individual benefit, the players were thinking about the team as a whole, Levy said.
“We all knew that every stroke counted,” Levy said. “Everyone was really contributing, thinking about the team rather than just their individual play.”

Sophomore Kyle Nordheimer said he felt that the team’s success during the season prepared them well for the postseason.

“We knew that we were going to be a big factor in districts and states, so when we won districts it was big for us,” Nordheimer said. “We felt confident going into states. After the first day, we were leading, and we shot the same scores the next day in order to win the tournament.”

The team feels confident going into next season, as they will only lose one member of the state championship team—senior Jordan Cornelius.

“I expect we’ll repeat at states again, because our team will be better next year,” Nordheimer said. “We’ll have good sophomore and juniors, so I think we’ll be really good.”