Southampton/Pierson Girls Golf Will Be in the Mix Once Again for a County Title

Entering just its sixth season as a varsity program, the Southampton/Pierson girls golf team has seen its fair share of success, having already won league titles, placing high in the county tournament in multiple seasons and having a couple of individual county champions along the way as well.

With the majority of the team returning, including their best golfer and a new rising star, the Mariners appear set to further add to what’s already been an impressive resume. Ella Coady, a two-time state qualifier, and a county champion in 2021 before finishing as runner up last season, is returning for her final season, and according to head coach Edgar “Hikey” Franklin, is very much already looking like one of the top golfers in the county.

Elie Poremba is a seventh-grader entering her first season on varsity and Franklin said she’s been everything he’s heard of and then some. With Coady and Poremba at the top of the lineup, and with the bulk of the team that placed third in the county returning, the sky is the limit for the girls, Franklin said.

“I really like this team overall. Going into the counties, I like our chances,” he said. “Ella is a senior, and we’re definitely going to need some of her senior experience, but I just think overall, from top to bottom, we’re very talented. These young ladies have had a golf club in their hands since birth and they definitely know the game. We just need to kind of tighten up more on course management, things like that. That comes with the season and the weather changing.”

Vivienne Archer, Katherine Blackmore, Jillian Switocha, Zaida Triffett, Emma Vail and Georgia Wilutis are all returning and should help offset the losses of Caroline Wilutis, Georgia’s older sister who qualified for states last season, and Hailey Marcincuk. Jillian Tanner is the “big gun from Pierson,” as Franklin put it, and should also help out this season.

“She’s playing really well right now. She hits the ball a mile, knows the game, knows course management — when to hit irons, when to hit driver — plays smart golf,” he said. “That’s another big bonus. Having her gives us really three to four top, solid players.”

The Mariners had called The Bridge Golf Club home for its first five years, but will now call Southampton Golf Club home — where it will play all of its home matches and practice most of the time. The change comes, Franklin said, after Southampton invited the girls to make the switch in the offseason and the team did so willingly. Not only is the course closer to the school, but many of the girls are either members there or have played there multiple times giving them a distinct edge over visiting teams.

“Southampton is basically right in our backyard and so it was a combination of the course becoming available and a mindful change,” Franklin said. “The pro there wanted it to happen and so did the board members. They saw what we did last year, said, ‘These are our girls, why don’t we have them here?’ So they invited us with open arms.”

Something that Franklin also noted is that the county tournament has been moved back to Middle Island Golf Club after being at Smithtown Landing last year. That should provide the Mariners a bit of a reprieve in terms of travel time, and they’re likely to play on the course a few times during the regular season as a few different teams in the county use the course.

Southampton already won its first match of the season, 8-1, over Shoreham-Wading River at The Rock Golf Club on April 4. It faced Longwood at Spring Lake Golf Club this past Tuesday and will have a full week off before playing Mount Sinai at Willow Creek Golf and Country Club this Tuesday, April 25. The Mariners don’t play their first home match until May 3 when they host Longwood.

Franklin said he expects Sachem to be his team’s ultimate challenge in League III — after all, the Flaming Arrows are the reigning county champs. But he certainly expects his team to be in the mix for the league title.

“Like a lot of coaches say, you don’t really replace players, you just rebuild and make the best of what you’ve got,” Franklin explained. “When you have a young lady like Elie Poremba coming up the pike, and you have a returning senior like Ella Coady, that’s a dynamic one-two punch, along with the returning girls who now know what counties are all about, the next few years are going to be a lot of fun with a lot of excitement.”