The composition of the 2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Girls Golf Team is quite similar to that of the previous season.
Three of the city’s best on the links last season — Regis Jesuit’s Audrey Whitmore and Natalie Furgason and Vista PEAK Prep’s Sophia Capua — for the foundation of this season’s team, which also includes the Cherokee Trail duo of Brinnon Cook and Haylee Clark.
The highest individual place for an Aurora area girls golfer was fourth, which went to Capua in her third career trip to the Class 4A state tournament, which was played this season at The Broadlands G.C.
After a debut season in 2023 in which she tied ninth, Capua dipped to 26th last season, but made the move back into the medalist group as a junior under new coach Kylie Severin, who returned to the Vista PEAK Prep program where she excelled for three seasons before she went off to play at Colorado State-Pueblo. Severin set the program’s all-time individual standard in 2019 when she tied for second place in a state tournament that was ended after just one round out due to weather.
Capua came up a little short of that (though she did edge Severin’s two-round best of fifth in 2018) with a finish that was helped by a plus-5 77 in the second round. It tied her for the lowest score of any of the 81 players in the field and pushed her up several spots after an opening round 83. In the regular season, Capua finished either first or second in five City League tournaments — including wins at Overland Park and Meadow Hills G.C. (where she shot her low round of the season of 1-under 70) — while she was third at the Region 3 tournament.
Whitmore graduates as the most decorated golfer of the group, as she qualified for the Class 5A state tournament in each of her four seasons and performed her best in her final trip. Over two days of play at challenging Todd Creek Golf Club, Whitmore played level-headed golf through 35 holes, then was overcome with emotion when she sank a putt on her final hole. She finished with rounds of plus-6 78 and plus-7 79 to come in tied for fifth place in a stacked field.
Whitmore jumped 40 spots over the course of her career, as she was 45th in 2022 as a freshman, surged to 18th as a sophomore and then cracked the top 10 last season as the acknoleged leader for coach Charlie Rutenbeck’s Regis Jesuit team. During the regular season, Whitmore earned All-Continental League first team honors with the sixth-best performance in the league over six tournaments, during which she broke 80 three times and shot a low of 71 at the Heather Cho Memorial tournament at the University of Denver Golf Club at Highlands Ranch. She is headed to Boston University to study biomedical engineering on a pre-med track.
While Whitmore made the All-Aurora team for a third straight time, teammate Furgason earned her second straight as she made a significant move up the standings in her return to the state tournament. Both of Furgason’s rounds were in the 90s last season and it led to a 57th-place finish, while she shot 89 and 92 this season that put her a tie for 36th place. Furgason’s low score of the season was an 84, which she shot at both the Heather Cho tournament and Continental League tournament at South Suburban G.C.
Cherokee Trail finished in front of Regis Jesuit in the 5A state team standings in 10th place with help from Cook and Clark, who tied for 27th & 30th, respectively, to achieve All-Aurora status.
Cook tied for Centennial League individual medalist honors with Cherry Creek’s Tatum Platt after a league season that began with a victory in the tournament at Littleton Golf & Tennis Club. She also tied for first with Clark in the league tournament at Foothills G.C. and the duo also tied for second in the final league tournament to lead coach Justin Jajcyzk’s Cougars to victory. Cook finished in the top 10 of every tournament she played in save for the Central Regional, in which she was 11th.
Clark also was a regular in the top 10 of tournaments all season long. In addition to her ties for first and second with Cook, she led Cherokee Trail in regional performance as she finished 10th individually. Clark — who was one of three local recipients of the Paul McMullen Junior Golf Scholarship given out by the City of Aurora’s Golf Division — is headed to Garden City Junior College in Kansas.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
