OAKDALE -- On Thursday, a month after winning her second straight state Class AAA high school championship, Celia Kuenster won her second Minnesota Junior Girls Championship in a row.
The Cretin-Derham Hall junior-to-be got off to a gloriious start, hitting her 19-degree rescue onto the green at the 442-yard, par-5 first hole at Oak Marsh GC and making a 25-foot putt for eagle. She went on to shoot a 2-under-par 68, which gave her a 36-hole total of 141 -- and a one-stroke victory.
Sarah Burnham matched her first-round score of 71, and the resulting 142 earned her the runner-up spot for the second consecutive year. (Last year, she lost to Kuenster in a three-hole playoff.)
It all sounds pretty straightforward. But there were a couple of plot twists that were about as violent as anything you could see in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
Kuenster, who has also won a Women's State Four-Ball title this year, along with Cassie Deeg, birdied the fourth hole by hitting a knock-down pitching wedge to 20 feet and converting the putt. That got her to 3 under for the round and even par for the tournament. She then proceeded to make eight consecutive pars.
That appeared to end the suspense, because Burnham, the first-round leader, had gotten off to a disastrous start -- double bogey, par, double, bogey, bogey -- and even though she got two strokes back with birdies at the seventh and eighth holes, she was still five behind.
The only other player within five strokes of par was Kate Smith, who was in the final group with Burnham -- Kuenster was playing one group ahead -- and she was three behind at plus-3.
But things tightened up when Kuenster bogeyed the first two par-3's on the back nine, the 13th and 15th holes, and Burnham birdied them both. So Kuenster was plus-2, Burnham was plus-3, and Smith, who had just bogeyed the 15th, was plus 4.
Kuenster didn't know that, however.
"I had no idea what was going on in any of the other groups," she said. "I would have like to know, but there was no way to find out."
Smith, who won the state AA high school championship this spring as an eighth-grader (and helped Detroit Lakes win the AA team championship in the process), fell out of contention when she made a double bogey at the 479-yard, par-5 16th.
Up ahead, Kuenster had issues of her own on that hole. She hit her tee shot into a fairway bunker and was in a greenside bunker in three, but she got it up and down from there to save par.
Kuenster got her second birdie of the day at the 121-yard, par-3 17th, with a punched 9-iron to 20 feet. That put her two ahead of Burnham, but the Wayzata junior-to-be responded with a birdie of her own, which meant that she played the three back-nine par-3's -- 13, 15, 17 -- in a grand total of six strokes.
As it turned out, Kuenster won the tournament on the 18th green, where she blew her first putt 12 feet past the hole, but then made the par putt coming back.
"I have no idea what I was doing on that first putt," she said. "I'm just glad I made the next one."
Smith made another double at the 18th, but it didn't matter. She ended up with a 76, and her 36-hole tab of 148 gave her sole possession of third place with three strokes to spare.
Cassie Deeg, the former State Junior Girls and state high school champion who just graduated from Stillwater, closed with a 76 and tied her longtime teammate Hailey Boner for fourth at 151.
For Burnham, being second in this tournament for the second year in a row, wasn't exactly thrilling. Nevertheless, it was a substantial accomplishment after starting the round 6 over after five holes. From there, she played the rest of the round in 5 under.
"It was a horrible start," she acknowledged, "but I told myself to just keep trying. I didn't want to just quit, which is the temptation when something like that happens, and I was happy with the way I fought back."
Like Kuenster, Burnham was in the dark about what anyone in any other group was doing on Thursday.
"When I finished, I thought my score might be good enough to win," she said. "Then I found out that Celia had shot 68."
Other than the 68, Burnham's two 71's were the two lowest scores shot in the tournament.
MINNESOTA WOMEN'S GOLF ASSOCIATION
State Junior Girls Championship
At Oak Marsh GC
Par 70
Oakdale
Final results
1. Celia Kuenster, Cretin-Derham Hall 73-68--141
2. Sarah Burnham, Wayzata 71-71--142
3. Kate Smith, Detroit Lakes 72-76--148
T4. Cassie Deeg, Stillwater 75-76--151
T4. Hailey Boner, Stillwater 72-79--151
6. Jennifer Pederson, St. Croix Lutheran 75-77--152
T7. Marisa Toivonen, Red Wing 79-75--154
T7. Sara Detlefsen, Eastview 79-75--154
T7. Emma Groom, St. Croix Lutheran 79-75--154
T10. Brenna Lervick, Chanhassen 81-74--155
T10. Meagan Rachey, Waconia 80-75--155
T12. Sadie Martin, Elk River 82-74--156
T12. Lexi Bollant, Buffalo 80-76--156
T12. Natalie Roth, Detroit Lakes 79-77--156
T12. Amanda Bigger, Alexandria 75-81--156
16. Anni Heck, Visitation 75-82--158
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