1977 Girls Golf Team

It was 1977 when a petite foursome of Astoria High School golfers would face monsoon-like conditions to end one of the longest athletic droughts in the storied history of Astoria High School, by winning the OSAA State Golf Championship at the Glendoveer golf links.

The last time a spot had to be cleared in the Astoria trophy case was in 1942, when Hall of Famer Wally Palmberg cagers brought home the hardware at the state level.

After a first-place finish at the District, Astoria qualified four girls to represent Astoria High School at the state championship. Senior Debi Everton, juniors Greta Thompson and Heidi Stroup were joined by freshman Sharon Cheong to round out the tournament squad. Sue Edison and Molly Zafiratos made up the rest of the team during regular season action as the girls pushed each other all season long.

On the first day of play, scores skyrocketed on the unfavorable course, but Astoria would hold a narrow one-stroke lead over Redmond as day one ended.

When the Astoria hackers returned for the second day of tournament play, adverse weather

conditions at the northeast Portland course had not improved from the prior day. This seemed to pose a problem to the Valley teams, but the Clatsop County foursome seemed acclimated to the weather that many in the field claimed had followed the girls from their home on the coast.

As the teams filtered back into the club house, and scores were reported, Fisherette coach John Deeder, who also headed the Astoria boys hoop program at the time, had to be aware that last year’s third-place finishers were well on their way to the title after making the turn into the final nine holes of play with a 12 stroke margin. When all the chips, putts, and drives were tallied at the end of the day, the Astoria girls held a commanding 24 stroke lead over the field, which included second-place finisher Beaverton, the prior year’s defending state champion.

Individually, Thompson led the Astorians with a four-round total of 173, which placed her fourth among the states elite female prep golfers. Sheldon’s Nancy Peck registered a 166 to become the tournament’s top medalist.

A week earlier, Thompson had carded a sizzling 79 to lead the Fisherettes to the District Tournament Championship, which was held at Portland’s Delta Park. Astoria finished with 356 strokes, to second place Estacada’s 393 strokes.