She may not be perfect on the district stage, but she’s pretty much as close as she could be.

After seeing her teammate Kelsey Patterson set the bar with a district title in Sam Fritzinger’s freshman season, the Emmaus senior has not only built off that success, but has taken it to another level. Fritzinger shot an 81 to edge Pottsville’s Rachel Brahler for the District 11 Class 3A girls championship on Monday at Locust Valley Country Club. Monday’s win was Fritzinger’s third straight district crown after coming in 11 strokes behind Patterson four years ago.

“I never really thought about it,” Fritzinger said of the district three-peat. “Every year I set the goal to win districts, and I just took it round by round.

“It feels great to win in my senior year. I was a little frustrated with how I played, but it got the job done so that makes it better.”

If it wasn’t for an early round blunder, she may have run away with her third title. But a double-bogey on her first hole put Fritzinger in a position that demanded her to respond. And she did.

“I struggled with my wedges and chipping,” Fritzinger said. “I started off with a double-bogey, but then I started playing better. I birdied hole 17 and 8 after starting on hole 14. We were playing pretty fast, but after about seven holes we caught up and all the groups got backed up.”

Along with Frtiznger, her teammate Belle Keopraseut had a successful outing as well. She finished in third place with a round of 89, just eight strokes behind Fritzinger. Both qualified for next Monday’s regional round at Golden Oaks.

On the boys’ side, Eric Cichocki will also represent Emmaus in the regional round after he posted a score of 81 and came in seventh place out of the 32 participants.

“It feels great to make it to regionals,” Cichocki said. “This was one of my main goals for this year, and to be able to achieve it feels awesome.

“It was probably one of the best rounds of my life simply because I got off to such a terrible start and was able to battle back. An 81 was a little higher than I had hoped to shoot, but I was ecstatic to be able to advance to regionals considering the start that I had to my round.”

Cichocki’s first half of his day was a letdown by his own standards. Many of his six bogeys and three double-boys came through the first 10 holes. But his final stretch over the last eight holes was like night and day compared to his rough start.

“I played the first 10 holes in 10-over par and the last eight 1-under par,” Cichocki said after posting three birdies and six pars. “I really struggled with my driver and putter for the first 10 holes, then I had one good swing with the driver and the whole round turned around. I played the next seven holes in a 2-under par, then three-putted the last hole for bogey. Despite the disappointing finishing hole, my last eight holes were some of the best that I played all season and could not have come at a better time.”

Cichocki hopes to build off his successful district day in the regional qualifier with a similar outing he put forth over his last eight district holes. He, along with Fritzinger, have similar goals when next week gets started. Both will be practicing throughout the week at Golden Oaks in hopes of achieving that.

“My goal moving forward with regionals is definitely to advance to states,” Cichocki said. “I will have to play well, but it is certainly an achievable goal.”

“My goal is to go out and play my game,” Fritzinger said. “I feel I have improved, and I am more comfortable going into it this year, so I am looking forward to playing there.”

Emmaus finished second as a team behind EPC and District 11 Class 3A champ Nazareth. The Blue Eagles’ Kevin Scherr won the tournament with a 74 and paced Nazareth’s team score of 325.

Rounding out Emmaus’ performers were Connor Wambold (94), Luke Lanzone (101) and AJ Olszewski (103). The Hornets shot a combined 345 from their top five scorers.