Craig earns a spot in Team Georgia lineup

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  • Team Georgia members are, from left, Ainsley Cowart, Sara Im, Ava Merrill, Kimberly Shen, Mikayla Dubnik and White County High School's Catie Craig. (Photo/Georgia State Golf Association)
    Team Georgia members are, from left, Ainsley Cowart, Sara Im, Ava Merrill, Kimberly Shen, Mikayla Dubnik and White County High School's Catie Craig. (Photo/Georgia State Golf Association)
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White County High School golfer Catie Craig is making some noise this summer on the Georgia State Golf Association junior tour.

In June, Craig was one of six players to earn a spot on Team Georgia for the 2019 Georgia-South Carolina Girls' Junior Challenge in August.

Craig and the Georgia squad will take on the top junior players from South Carolina on Aug. 3-4, in Hilton Head Island at Palmetto Hall Plantation Golf Club.

This will be the 14th time the two state's top players have met in the series, with Georgia leading the all-time series 10-3.

The Georgia players earned a spot on the team during the GSGA's Junior Championship June 17-19 at Harbor Club in Greensboro. Golfers are eligible for the Georgia Girls' Championship if they were between the ages of 14 and 18 at the time of the Championship.

Craig, the 2018 Class AAAA state champion and the 2019 state runner-up, posted a 226 total during the three-day competition. She had rounds of 75 and 75 on the first two days, and finished off with a 76 in the third round to tie with Dacula High School's Madeline Ananthasane for sixth place. Craig clinched her spot on the team by winning the playoff with Ananthasane.

Central Carrollton's Ainsley Cowart, who finished in a tie for 7th place at the Class AAAA tournament this spring, ran away from the rest of the field to take the Junior Championship title. Cowart, who will be a freshman at Troy University this fall, fired a 67 in the opening round to open up a three stroke lead and never looked back, adding rounds of 71 and 69 to post a 207 total and take a nine stroke win.

A pair of young players, rising high school freshman Sara Im and Ava Merrill, finished second and third respectively. Im, a Dacula resident, finished at 216 to place second, while Merrill, from John's Creek, was one stroke back at 217.

Chattahoochee High School's Kimberly Shen finished fourth with a three-round total of 218, followed by North Hall's Mikayla Dubnik at 220. Shen tied for third place in the 2019 Class AAAAAA tournament, while Dubnik was tied for the runner-up spot in the Class AAA tournament last spring.

At the Georgia-South Carolina Challenge, there will be six singles matches each day. Each match will be scored in the Nassau scoring format consisting of one point for the front nine match, one point for the back nine match, and one point for the overall match.