New Canaan had a perfect 14-0 season and then won FCIAC and state championships with a strong, balanced, and deep team to highlight a successful girls’ golf season for the conference.
Individually, there are many quality golfers in the FCIAC who had plenty more achievements and a handful of the best teams in the state were from the conference.
Chloe Cui, a freshman, shot a 79 to place second and the other three scoring Rams all placed among the top eight to lead New Canaan to the victory by seven strokes over runner-up Greenwich at the 2024 FCIAC Girls Championship at the Fairchild Wheeler Black Course in Fairfield.
New Canaan, which was runner-up to Trumbull last year, won its sixth FCIAC championship in the last seven years.
This year’s conference championship tournament was formatted with five full teams competing to win the team title and eight more golfers played as individual qualifiers.
Paige McKenna of Fairfield Warde, which was not one of the five full teams, shot a 75 to win medalist honors.
Cui was runner-up with her 79 and her teammates Amanda Vigano (83), Maxie Mirin (84) and Faith Hobbs (87) placed 6-8, respectively, to enable New Canaan to win with a team score of 333. If one of the scoring Rams happened to have an off day, they would have still won the conference crown because their fifth golfer, Lauren Livesay, carded an 88.
Allison Bauer placed third with an 80 and Caroline McShea tied for fourth with an 81 to lead Greenwich’s Cardinals to second place with their team score of 340.
Trumbull junior Grace Codd also shot an 81 to tie for fourth place and her teammate, Maris Branyan, tied for eighth place with an 87 as they led Trumbull to third place with a 345. Codd shot an 80 last year at Fairchild Wheeler to win medalist honors and lead Trumbull to the school’s first FCIAC championship.
The conference also conducted the Individual Girls FCIAC Championship one week earlier for many of the conference’s top players and Ridgefield freshman Arabella Lopez was the medalist with a 72 at the Country Club of New Canaan. Cui was the runner-up with a 75, Bauer placed third with 78, Trumbull’s Erica Laurentino (79) took fourth, Livesay and Hobbs tied for fifth with an 80 and they were followed by Codd (82), Mirin (85), Wilton’s Saanvi Kakarlapudi (85), McShea (86), McKenna (86), and New Canaan’s Carielle D’Elisa (88) and Vigano (91).
New Canaan’s foursome of Cui, Vigano, Mirin and Livesay teamed up to all finish among the top 14 and lead coach Bill Brown’s Rams to the team championship by three strokes over Trumbull at the 2024 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Division I Girls Golf Tournament on June 3 at Tashua Knolls Golf Course in Trumbull.
Cui placed fourth with a 78, Vigano and Mirin tied for 11th with an 82, and Livesay tied for 14th with an 84 to enable the Rams to win their Division I state championship with a team score of 326.
Codd placed third with a 75, Laurentino tied for eighth with an 81, and Nicolette Hall tied for 14th with an 83 to lead Trumbull’s runner-up Eagles to their team score of 329.
McShea tied for fourth with a 78 and Charlotte Langhorne tied for eighth with an 81 to lead defending champion Greenwich to third place (336), seven strokes behind Trumbull. There were five FCIAC teams among the top eight as Darien (374) and Fairfield Ludlowe (375) placed seventh and eighth, respectively.
Cheshire’s superb sophomore Julia Paek fired a 66 to cop medalist honors by eight strokes over runner-up Laniah Moffett of Waterbury Co-op after Paek won the Southern Connecticut Conference Tournament championship by 17 strokes.
Four days after the Division I state tournament, the CIAC Girls State Open for the best individuals in the state took place at Mohegan Sun Golf Course on June 7 and Paek shot a 71 to win that by two strokes over Moffett.
Seven FCIAC golfers placed among the top 13. Cui tied for fourth with a 75, Bauer (76) placed sixth, Codd (80) was ninth, Lopez (84) tied for 10th, Livesay (85) placed 12th, and McShea and McKenna both had an 86 to finish in a four-way tie for 13th.