2025 PA Junior Fields Loaded With Contenders

PAGA 2025 Junior Championships Loaded with Contenders

Possibly the deepest field ever in the boys’ draw and 12 of the top 14 finishers a year ago returning in the girls’ field should make for exciting times when the Pennsylvania Golf Association (PAGA) hosts its junior championships, June 23-24. Both 54-hole events are sponsored by DICK’S Sporting Goods. 

The 62^nd Junior Girls’ event will be played at Lebanon Country Club with an automatic exemption for the winner into the USGA’s Junior Girls’ Amateur later this summer. On the boys’ side, the East Course at Hershey Country Club will be the site of the 82nd boys’ competition. That winner earns a 2026 exemption into the prestigious Sunnehanna Amateur, part of the country’s Elite Amateur Golf Series.

Defending Champion, Kate Sowers (Tam O'Shanter GC) will have plenty of competions in her effort to defend her 2024 title. For starters, among the 57 girls competing at Lebanon are the two current state high school champions. Mya Morgan (Nemacolin Country Club), who won the PIAA AAA title, heads a group that includes nine of the top 10 finishers in that tournament who all finished within six shots of Morgan. The 2023 state champion, Rhianna Gooneratne (The 1912 Club), finished second in the state event followed by Alaina Carson (GAP Youth on Course), Kayley Roberts (PAGA Individual member) and Vivienne Powers (Country Club of York) who tied for third. Chambersburg Country Club’s Emily Rensch and Piper Smith (Conestoga Country Club) were the other top-10 place winners. Gooneratne has been the PAGA event’s third-place finisher in each of the last two years.

Madison Koshko (Centre Hills Country Club) was the state’s AA champion and the four other top five finishers in that event are all also in PAGA’s state competition in Lebanon, including the runner-up Kate Sowers (Tam O’Shanter Golf Course), who won this competition in 2024 and was the only player under par after three rounds. Wildwood Golf Club’s Alyssa Zhang, Country Club of York’s Olivia Kury and Cora Hirz (Lake Shore Country Club) placed third through fifth at the PIAA tournament.

The field will also include some other serious contenders.  Hannah Rabb (Susquehanna Valley Country Club) has been the runner up in this event for three-consecutive years and Bryn Krosse (Regents’ Glen Country Club), who recently set the Country Club of York course record with a 10-under 63 to win the Pennsylvania Four-Ball Championship alongside Gooneratne.

Wide open might be the best description for the boys’ field which also returns several high place finishers from last year’s championship and many players who had great success in the PIAA event including 2024 AAA titlist Carson Kittsley. Kittsley (Oakmont Country Club), playing for Fox Chapel High School, got experience in a loaded field as his eight-under score topped 20 other players who posted two-day totals under par in the PIAAs. He finished tied for fourth in last year’s PAGA event at Hershey.

Nicky Nemo (Merion Golf Club) and Davis Conaway (Fieldstone Golf Club) shared that three-way tie for fourth place a year ago, while Luke McGraw (Toftrees Golf Resort) was a shot behind with Colton Lusk (Nemacolin Golf Club) and Callahan Harrell (Out Door Country Club) two shots back. Lusk was also the fifth-place finisher in the PIAA AAA event and Chase Yenser (Reading Country Club), Dylan Ramsey (Royal Oaks Golf Course) and Cameron Peffel (GAP Youth on Course) who are also in the field all tied for second behind Kittsley.

Throw into the mix the two most recent championship successes and the plot thickens even more. Merion Golf Club’s Sean Curran needed an extra hole in the match-play final to win the Golf Association of Philadelphia's  111^th junior championship last week. He took down his clubmate Nemo in 19 holes after the home club duo made it through stroke-play qualifying and the necessary rounds in match play to face off for the title.  Two weeks ago, it was Michael Quallich (South Hills Country Club) besting the field on the other side of the state at Lone Pine Country Club in the 105^th Western Pennsylvania Golf Association junior championships to claim that title.

Another trio of top 10 finishers in the PIAA AA field will also compete at Hershey. Alex Talmadge (White Oak Farms Golf Course) was fifth in the high school event at State College with Santino Toscano (WPGA/USGA) and Alan Evans (Schuylkill Country Club) in a ninth-place tie.

The field of 137 players will be cut to the low 60 scores and ties after the 18 holes on the first day. The remaining players left after the cut will play 36 holes on the second day to decide a winner.