Stasi wins eighth Phila. Women's Match Play Championship

WILMINGTON - After being absent from the Philadelphia Women's Match Play Championship for six years, Meghan Stasi returned to one of the nation's oldest amateur tournaments for women and ended the week with a familiar result.

The 36-year-old Stasi, a former Voorhees resident who now lives in Oakland Park, Fla., played solid all-around golf and sank her share of clutch putts Friday to defeat Emily Gimpel, 2 and 1, at Wilmington Country Club's South course and win the event for the eighth time.

Stasi, an Eastern High graduate, won her first seven championships in succession, from 1999 through 2005, as Meghan Bolger. She missed 2006 to attend a friend's wedding and lost in the semifinals in 2007. This was her first time back since then, and since her marriage to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. restaurant owner Danny Stasi in 2008.

The winner of a record-tying four U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Championships, Stasi usually spends this week playing against national competition in the North & South Women's Amateur at Pinehurst, N.C. But this year, she decided to compete at home.

"I just wanted to come back and play," she said. "I know it's been a long time, so I just felt like doing it. I was changing my schedule a little this summer. I wanted to play a lot in Florida events and play up here.

"It's just like home. I haven't lived up here in a while, but I have friends and family up here so I just try to say hello to everybody and try to play as much as I can."

Stasi had to be at the top of her game in the 36-hole final against Gimpel, 22, who recently graduated from Maryland and will go next month to the first LPGA qualifying tournament while competing as an amateur.

Stasi's first breakthrough came at the end of the morning round, which saw neither contestant lead by more than one hole most of the way. But on the uphill par-4 18th, Stasi hit her approach shot out of a fairway bunker to 12 feet and made the putt to take a 2-up lead at the lunch break.

Stasi won three of her first five holes in the afternoon to go 5-up, and maintained that lead with eight holes to go. Gimpel, of Whitemarsh Valley, gradually reduced the margin to two after a 10-foot birdie putt at No. 16, but couldn't get closer.

"It was a great match," Gimpel said. "Meaghan is a great player. She got a few more putts to drop today, made a few more birdies than I did. But it was a lot of fun."