Caroline Sweet, from Bowie, and Kaitlyn Rohrback, from Crofton, turned the
89th Maryland State Women's Amateur semifinals into one-sided affairs,
as each turned 3-up and expanded on that margin on the back nine at
Sparrows Point Country Club in Baltimore County, July 21.

Sweet, 19, the 2008 champion, who is a clubmate of Rohrback's at Crofton
Country Club, stopped Diana Brown, 18, from Congressional Country Club, 4
and 3, while Rohrback, 18, put out Nicole West, 18, from Enterprise Golf
Club and in her first match-play tournament, 5 and 4.

On a hot summer afternoon, Sweet won Nos. 7 (birdie)-8-9 to go 3 up, lost
10, then birdied the 11th from 30 feet and the 12th from 15 feet. Brown
briefly staved off elimination when she won the long 14th with a par, but
Sweet bounced right back, hitting a hybrid club shot to three feet at the
165-yard 15th. She didn't have to putt, as Brown, reigning Maryland Public
Schools girls' champion, blasted from a greenside bunker to nine feet, then
missed the putt.

Rohrback, making only her second appearance in the event -- in 2006 she
went to the semifinals, losing to Stephanie Connelly at the Upland Golf
Club -- put this one away early, going 2 up after the third and 3 up at the
turn. She did not lose a hole on the back, winning the 12th and ending it
on the 14th with an eight-foot birdie putt.

In the morning quarterfinals. Sweet defeated Kimberly Thomas, from Winters
Run GC, 4 and 3; and Rohrback used a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th green
to separate herself (1 up) from current Maryland State Junior titlist,
Karishma Thiagaraj, 16, from Rockville, who put up a stubborn
fight.

Rohrback was 3 up after the 11th, but Thiagaraj won the 12th
and 13th and they halved the 14th and 15th. The leader went 2 up
with a par at 16, but her challenger came right back with a birdie to send
it to the 18th hole. Overall, the two combined for a whopping 13
birdies, with Rohrback finishing 3 under par and Thiagaraj, 1 under. The
par 36-36--72 course was played at 5,894 yards.

In the other matches, Brown sank a 15-foot birdie putt at the 18th to
defeat Kimbra Benson, a recent U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links player, 1
up, and West went 4 up through six holes and prevailed, 7 and 6, over
Alexis Holmes, another first-time entrant, who plays from the University of
Maryland GC.

-Reported by John Stewart from Sparrows Point CC