ALEXANDRIA — The top two seeds in the Women’s Executive bracket, No. 1 Amanda O’Donnell and No. 2 Jodi Sullivan, captured victories in less than 18 holes in the quarterfinal round on Thursday. Meanwhile, sixth-seeded Caitlin Cummings and fifth-seeded Molly Baker earned close wins to advance to Friday’s semifinals.
Sullivan has plenty of experience making deep runs in this field in recent years. She finished as the Women’s Executive champion in 2018 and runner-up in 2017 and 2019. Sullivan is a two-time Women’s Division champion.
Baker has been to this stage before as well and has pushed through to the finals. She finished as the runner-up in the 2021 Resorters Tournament, falling to four-time women’s executive champion and two-time women’s champion Betsy Aldrich.
Here are the full results from Thursday’s quarterfinal matches.
O’Donnell def. Lisa Sobba, 4-2
Sam Stuve / Alexandria Echo Press
A strong finish to the front nine led O’Donnell to victory over the eight-seeded Lisa Sobba. With both of them having won two holes out of the first five, O’Donnell took control of the match on hole 6, winning the hole, along with 7 and 9.
Sobba cut O’Donnell’s lead down to two heading to the 13th hole, but O’Donnell put the match away with a birdie on hole 15 and a par on hole 16.
In each round she has played, including the qualifying round, O’Donnell has started on hole 1 with a par and has won the first two out of three holes in both match play rounds.
Sam Stuve / Alexandria Echo Press
The match between Baker and four-seeded Andrea Allyn was as close as one would expect a No. 5 versus No. 4 matches to go.
Baker led 2-up after nine holes thanks to winning holes 2 and 8. Baker led 3-up after winning a hole on the back nine, but Allyn clawed back to trim Baker’s winning margin to 1-up.
Baker has won the second hole in both match play rounds and has parred hole 7 in the match play rounds and qualifying round.
Sullivan def. Steege, 4-3
On holes 8 through 15, Sullivan has been in control of her matches and that was the case for her quarterfinal match against seventh-seeded Heather Steege.
With the match tied heading to the eighth, Sullivan won that hole along with the 11th, 13th and 15th to earn a 4-3 win over Steege.
Sullivan has won 12 holes in the match play rounds, 10 of which have come between holes 8 and 15. She hasn’t needed to play holes 16, 17 and 18.
Cummings def. Lambros, 2-1
14th seeded Rose Lambros couldn’t quite capture the same magic in Thursday’s quarterfinal match against Caitlin Cummings as she had in her Wednesday win over No. 3 seed Pam Marlow.
Sam Stuve / Alexandria Echo Press
Cummings needed strong finishes to each nine to beat Lambros. Lambros won holes 6 and 7 to tie the match, but Cumming won holes 8 and 9 to lead 2-up.
The match was tied heading to the 15th, where Cummings won the hole to take the lead. Cummings got the final win she needed at the 17th.
WOMEN’S EXECUTIVE SEMIFINALS, FRIDAY – 1st Tee
12:30 pm – Amanda O’Donnell vs. Molly Baker; Jodi Sullivan vs. Caitlin Cummings