Loveland’s Katelyn Lehigh continues strong college play by notching top-5 finish at Mountain West tourney, where her older sister thrived; CSU’s Kara Kaneshiro also fifth
By Gary Baines – 4/17/2025
When it comes to the Mountain West Conference women’s golf tournament, Katelyn Lehigh could do a lot worse than emulating her older sister.
The Loveland High School alum, now a junior at Fresno State, did just that this week at the league meet at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
During her career at the University of New Mexico, Lauren Lehigh finished second twice — including once in a playoff — and third once in the Mountain West Conference Championship.
And this week, Katelyn did her best to follow suit. Katelyn, like Lauren a two-time Colorado 5A girls high school individual champion, tied for fifth individually on Thursday at the MWC meet. The younger Lehigh went 73-75-71 for a 3-over-par total that left her eight strokes behind champion Lucia Lopez Ortega of San Jose State.
That continues a very strong stretch for Katelyn Lehigh, who claimed an individual college title last season. In five of the last six tournaments, she’s placed in the top six.
Tying Lehigh for fifth place on Thursday was sophomore Kara Kaneshiro of Colorado State, a native of Hawaii who carded scores of 71-73-75. It was her fifth top-10 individual showing of the season.
As a team, CSU placed fourth out of nine teams.
For all the scores from the women’s MWC tournament, CLICK HERE.
— Elsewhere: On Wednesday, the University of Northern Colorado finished sixth at the women’s Big Sky Conference tournament in Litchfield Park, Ariz. Freshman Samantha Colombine (76-71-72) led the Bears individually, finishing 11th. SCORES … The University of Colorado women placed 14th out of a formidable 14-team field at the Big 12 Conference tournament in Hockley, Texas, on Thursday. Maria Eidhagen Harrouch (74-77-72) paced the Buffs with a 25th-place individual finish. SCORES
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com