ROGERS -- Tanna Richard's emotions never changed as her commanding lead shrank.
Richard, 59, had been here before. The Fort Smith golfer has won numerous Arkansas Women's Golf Association state championships over the course of her long career.
AWGA State Match Play
At Shadow Valley CC, Rogers
Championship Division
Tanna Richard def. Taylor Loeb 2 and 1
Open Division
Pam Evans def. Brenda Alexander 1 up
Junior Division
Brooke Matthews def. Bailey Dunstan 4 and 3
Consolation First
Rosetta Parks def. Carol Driscoll 3 and 2
Open Second
Norma Hartney def. Christie Mahl 1 up*
*— Playoff
Playing Thursday against 18-year-old Taylor Loeb, who will be a freshman at Henderson State in a few weeks, Richard took a five-hole lead in the championship flight of the AWGA state match play after 11 holes at Shadow Valley Country Club. But Loeb, who won the Class 7A high school girls state championship as a sophomore at Mount St. Mary, refused to go away.
Even after her second shot found the rough on No. 12, Loeb rallied to stay in the match through the next four holes, winning at 14, 15 and 16.
But Richard kept her composure as they moved to the par-3 17th. Both were on the green off the tee box, but Richard's birdie putt rolled past the pin by about 3 feet. Loeb's second shot barely missed. Needing a par putt to tie the hole and win the match, Richard drained the short comeback to secure the title 2 and 1.
"I've been in her position before, that many down, and you change your mindset," Richard said. "You're going for it; you don't have any other choice.
"I knew that she probably would stage a comeback, and I wasn't surprised at all that she did."
It was Richard's second AWGA match play state title, the first coming in 1980. She has finished second four times (2003, 2006, 2012, 2013). She also won the state stroke play title in 1996 and was the junior stroke play champion in 1973 and 1974. She is also has won the AWGA seior player of the year title eight times.
On Thursday, Richard dominated the match over the front nine to build the big lead.
"All week, I just tried to be consistent," she said. "Today, I did pretty good at the beginning and just hung on. I was able to make shots when I needed to and my putter was working well all week."
Loeb, who is a past junior AWGA winner, said she tried to stay positive after trailing by five holes.
"I just kept telling myself in the cart that I can do this," Loeb said. "But today just wasn't my day."
Brooke Matthews, who will be a senior at Rogers High School in the fall, ran away with the junior match play title, defeating Bailey Dunston 4 and 3 after the 14th hole. Dunston will be a freshman at Baptist Prep this fall.
"I started off really solid," Matthews said. "I made an eagle on the third hole. I just wanted to get up as many holes as possible so that I didn't have to go all 18 holes."
Matthews, who is verbally committed to play golf at Arkansas, won the ASGA junior amateur title at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Little Rock earlier this summer.
"I feel like I still have a lot of work to do, but it's getting there," Matthews said. "I feel like I'm getting better every day."
She will head to Indiana this weekend for an American Junior Golf Association event next week.
Richard said she has a couple of tournaments she's considering over the next couple of weeks. Both she and Loeb said they will compete in the AWGA stroke play championship this month, where Richard will try to pull off something she's never done before -- win both the match play and stroke play titles in the same year.
Sports on 07/01/2016