By CHRISTIAN WORSTELL
Walking up to the ninth green at Pinehurst No. 6 on Oct. 29, Victoria Allred couldn’t hold it in any longer. After starting her day on the 10th tee of the final round of the 4-A state championships, Allred knew this would be the last fairway she would ever walk as a high school golfer.
“I was crying walking up to the green on the final hole,” said Allred, a senior at Reagan who will take her game to East Carolina University next year.
Allred finished in a tie for sixth individually to cap off a brilliant career at Reagan. Allred finished in the top 11 at the state tournament all four years, including winning the state championship as a sophomore. Just months before that win she captured the Twin States Girls Championship and vaulted to No. 1 in the Carolinas Golf Association junior rankings.
Allred, whose father, Jay is the head coach at Reagan, burst onto the scene as a freshman when she finished 11th in the state tournament when the contest was held at Pinehurst No. 1. When the tournament moved to Pinehurst No. 6 the following year, Allred finished first and followed that up with a 10th place finish her junior year in harsh weather from a hurricane off the coast, the same season she twice tied the school record-low score of 34 for a nine-hole match during the regular season.
“We’ve played here the last three years so I’m pretty familiar with (the course). It’s an interesting and difficult layout,” Allred said of the course that has hosted the tournament since 2011. “Your game has to be right on top to win.”
Allred shot rounds of 78-77 and finished six shots back of champion Emilia Magliaccio of Athens Drive in a field of 78 players. Magliaccio’s 36-hole total of 149 is the same total as when Allred won the title two years ago.
“I didn’t hit the ball well (the first day) but my short game was really on top. I hit the ball better today,” Allred said. “A lot of my putts found the lip and they just were not falling. So it was one of those frustrating days where none of my birdie putts would fall.”
A week earlier, she shot 76 and was medalist in the West Regional at Brushy Mountain Golf Course in Taylorsville.
Allred’s performance highlighted the Triad area players who competed. She combined with teammates Sheridan Lee (93-91) and Cassie Paulin (92-94) to lead Reagan to a seventh-place finish among ten competing teams.
Reagan placed third at states during Allred’s freshman year and followed that up with a school-best second-place finish in 2011 when Allred won the state title. Reagan then finished fourth a year ago but lost two key seniors, leaving Allred as the only player with state tournament experience.
Joliana Elias, a senior at Ragsdale, was the only other Triad area player to place in the top 20 and she represented well, shooting rounds of 81 and 82 to finish in a tie for 17th. She had tied for first in the Central Regional a week earlier with 75 before settling for runner-up honors in a playoff.
Greensboro Page earned a bid to states out of the Central Regional and placed ninth. Sophomores Carrie Catherine Ganim (85-93) and Ellis Hunter (91-89) led the Pirates.
