Jun 13, 2024 | By: Charlie Yaeger

W-H-A’s Kianna Johnson Makes 4th Straight Class A Golf Tournament Appearance

Walker-Hackensack-Akeley boys’ golf is back at the state tournament for a second straight year, but what about their girls’ team? As it turns out, they do have a girls’ team, but right now it only has one varsity golfer, junior Kianna Johnson, and she is currently blazing the trail for the future of Lady Wolves golf after winning her fourth straight Section 7A individual title.

“It does kind of feel like business as usual,” she said, “but … the thrill of it is still, it’s always going to be there and it’s always going to kind of put a smile on my face.”

That’s because the game of golf has always put a smile on Johnson’s face. The young golfer has been on the course as far back as she can remember.

“My parents bought me a plastic set of clubs when I was really little. I’d come out here with my dad and just kind of hang around him. And ever since then, I’ve just always stuck with it and finally got a real set, and I was always out here. I basically lived out here.”

But since the Wolves don’t have a full girls’ team, Johnson became part of the boys’ pack instead.

“I practice with them, play with them. But it’s fun,” she said with a chuckle. “They keep it entertaining to say the least.”

“It just kind of worked out. She just kind of fit in. And she’s definitely one of us,” asserted Michael Descalos, a junior on the W-H-A boys’ golf team who is also Kianna’s cousin. “You know, she’s made it to state. We’re trying to push to be the same, we’re trying to do the same. You know, we want her to win, she wants us to win. So we’re pushing each other.”

“They’re one family, one pack,” added head coach Carrie Johnson. “They play with each other. They’re always challenging each other. And she can hang with them. Nobody’s putting her on the back burner.”

While elevating her game by practicing alongside the boys is certainly a positive, Johnson still feels like a lone wolf on occasion.

“The pros are that I can wear whatever I want,” she joked. “But the con is [at] the girls’ tournaments, it’s always just me and coach. So the couple of times that we brought one of the other girls with, it was great. Someone else to talk to, have another girl out there, get her the experience of a varsity golf meet…I loved it.”

And the hope is that one day the Lady Wolves will have a pack to run with as well.

“That would be awesome to see,” Johnson said. “And with the girls that we have now, I see a lot of potential in them, so I could see the girls team actually making it all the way and going to state. It’s just a matter of if they put that effort in.”

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