SOL Girls' Golf Tournament (10-1-24)

Ben Reese recaps the highlights of Tuesday's SOL Girls' Golf Tournament. Photos provided courtesy of Tracy Valko. Check back for a gallery of photos.

By Ben Reese

WARMINSTER — Rhianna Gooneratne is still on fire.

Seventeen days short of one year since she captured the PIAA 3A golf championship at Penn State University, the Plymouth Whitemarsh senior collected her second straight Suburban One League girls title on Tuesday at Five Ponds Golf Club. And, while she had some competition, in the end, it wasn’t that close.

Gooneratne shot a 1-under par 70 to take the crown by three shots over Souderton’s Alli Engart and five shots over Naaz Mehta of Council Rock North. She was the only golfer to finish her round under par.

“I like to get out to a good start with playoffs, so this feels great especially as it’s my last season,” Gooneratne said. 

So, this win starts you on your way again, right?

“I’m trying to not look too much into the future,” she said. “I just want to play good golf and, if I play good golf, I’ll be happy with whatever happens.”

Do you have your sights set on winning the District One championship too?

“Yes,” she said with a big smile. “Hopefully I’ll just play some good golf and see what happens.”

The top three girls were playing together in the same foursome. And they, along with the fourth member of the group, Central Bucks South’s Sophia Branca, produced some great golf.

Engart actually took the lead after the second hole. Both Gooneratne and Engart parred the opening hole but then Gooneratne bogeyed the second while Engart parred the par-4 hole.

“I knew I still had holes to play, so I really wasn’t upset with the bogie on two,” Gooneratne said. “I just knew that if I stayed calm, I would be able to make some putts, make some birdies, and bring my score down.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

Gooneratne parred the next two holes and then birdied No. 5 while Engart was parring the same holes and Mehta, who had bogeyed Nos. 2 and 3, parred four holes before bogeying No. 5.

Engart realized what she was up against coming into the tournament.

“I knew that Rhianna was going to be tough competition going into the day,” she said. “I was really focused on playing my game, taking it one shot at a time and just doing whatever I could to put a dent in whatever lead she built up. I’m really happy with how close I came this year.”

While this was going on, Mehta was quietly putting her game together. She parred her way through the end of the front nine and opened the back nine with a birdie to get to 2-over par.

But she couldn’t sustain it. Over the final eight holes, she turned in four pars, one birdie and three bogies.

However, Mehta wasn’t upset with her finish.

“I think that a lot of my hard work went into this,” she said. “I think it showed, but there is still room to improve. I left some shots out there.”

All three were pleased with some aspects of their game. In all three, putting was near the top of the list of good things.

“I think my iron shots were pretty good, and I was just making the putts,” Gooneratne said. “I didn’t get in too much trouble off the tee which was pretty good.”

Engart echoed the praise for iron shots.

“I felt like I was striking my irons pretty well which was helpful because it gave me some good looks at birdie or good opportunities to make par,” she said. “I feel that my putting really helped with that too because it was pretty solid all day.”

Mehta expanded on the putting theory.

“I think my putting was pretty good,” she said. “If I missed the putt, it was a tap-in which I was pretty  happy with. It was really consistent out there. I (also) think most of my tee shots were in the fairway and in play and that’s all I really needed.”

All three advance to the District One tournament on Oct. 14 and 15 at Raven’s Claw and Turtle Creek. But five more SOL golfers also advanced.

They are Branca, Mariana Walker of CR North, Cheltenham’s Andi Jones, Gigi Gratz of North Penn and Pennsbury’s Christina St. Pierre. The cutoff for advancement was 98.

SOL District Qualifiers