The Montverde Academy girls golf team officially made program history on Wednesday afternoon.
The 2024 edition of the roster won the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) Class 1A state championship. Just weeks after the Eagles won the district championship to claim their first ever FHSAA championship of any kind, the girls won the state championship while qualifying as a team for the first time in program history.
Montverde Academy totaled a 567, 10 strokes better than Circle Christian who finished second with a 577.
"It was a challenging state championship, playing against the best sixteen teams in the state, every team has great players, but to win this just shows how great our girls play," head coach Neil Barnhill said. "I'm very numb right now, it hasn't sunk in yet. But it's very special, a dream come true. I'm so proud of these girls for what they've accomplished."
Grace Xu was the overall winner. Not only was she the overall winner, the freshman prodigy broke two FHSAA state championship records in the process. She scored a 131 over the two days to set a new state championship reocrd for lowest score in tournament history. On day one, she golfed a 62 (-9) for the lowest round in FHSAA state championship history.
"I was so glad, excited to win the first state championship," said Xu. "I think I played well these two days. Before the tournament I knew we could win the state championship even though it was the first time we played in this tournament because I knew we got one of the best players on the team, and all of the players played well in this tournament, and so I was so glad to win."
Behind Xu was Chanelle Mwangi who was nineteenth overall with a 145 (-3). Cynthia Yang, Zurich Kanokpornvasin and Michelle Jing Su tied for twenty-fifth overall with a two day score of 148 (+6).
The state championship by girls golf marks the seventh sport at MVA to win the FHSAA's top prize, joining  softball (2024), boys track & field (2022, 2024), girls track & field (2024), girls soccer (2018, 2019, 2023, 2024), boys tennis (2017) and boys cross country (1992).
