Salem High graduate and golf alum Kathryn Ha was the runnerup in the recent VSGA Women’s Amateur Championship held at the Roanoke Country Club. Elsie MacCleery beat hometown favorite Ha, 3 and 2, in a thrilling final match in July.
Both players survived stern semifinal tests to get to the final match. Ha defeated fellow RCC member Alisa Davidova 2-up with a conceded par putt on 18. Moments later, MacCleery drained about a 20-foot birdie putt on 18 to claim a 2-up win over Madison Lehr in the other semifinal.
For Ha, a member of the Vanderbilt University golf team, the week remained a success. She rolled through stroke-play qualifying as medalist by five strokes and beat a strong string of competitors in Virginia Tech’s Emerson Dever, past U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Lauren Greenlief, and rising star Davidova before running into MacCleery. She has plenty of positives to take from the week.
“It was super special,” Ha said. “There were a lot of members that were out here, and my family, and some of my local friends that were here. It all felt really familiar. It meant so much to have their support all week.”
Carly Wilkes, a 2022 graduate of Glenvar High School, will be running for the University of Virginia this fall. Carly recently graduated from Furman University in Greenville, S.C., summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Sciences.
Wilkes was an all-state runner at Glenvar and continued to shine with the Paladins. She broke the 10K school record her junior year and was named Southern Conference cross country Runner of the Year in 2024.
Carly was named to the All-SoCon first team that junior year after winning the league’s individual title with a 5K PR of 16:09.7, leading the Paladins to their 12th-straight SoCon Championship. She qualified for the NCAA East Preliminaries in the 5,000 and 10,000 in track in 2025.
Wilkes has one year of running eligibility remaining that she will use this season competing for UVA and earning her M.Ed. in kinesiology with a concentration in exercise physiology.
