By Andy Walter

WYOMING — As she stood over the ball, the Henlopen Conference championship riding on this six-foot putt, Sarah Lydic admits a negative thought or two crept into her mind.

“I’m like, ‘Well, you can make it, because you know the line,’” said the Sussex Academy golfer. “But then I said to myself, ‘If you don’t make it Sarah, you might lose because you’d have to go to the next hole.’

“I mean it wasn’t the right thing to be thinking. But, yeah, I was nervous.”

Just a freshman, Lydic calmly sank the birdie putt anyway to capture her first Henlopen Conference individual title in a one-hole playoff on Tuesday afternoon.

The player she beat? Older sister, Hannah, of course.

The Lydic sisters both carded 71s to tie for first in the 18-hole event. And with teammate Sawyer Brockstedt right behind with a 73, the Seahawks (299 total) also brought home the team championship by finishing 16 shots ahead of second-place Caesar Rodney (315) at Wild Quail Country Club.

It’s the eight-year-old Georgetown school’s first conference title in any sport but hardly a surprise after Sussex Academy dominated the Henlopen during the regular season. The Seahawks bettered CR by 18 shots in last week’s Henlopen North-South match.

The Lydic sisters deciding the individual crown was hardly unexpected, either. The two Ocean View residents have been playing golf since they were four and six years old.

While both wanted to win the playoff, naturally, both said there wasn’t going to be any hard feelings when it was over.

“It was a blast,” said Hannah, a junior. “With the all the people — the big gallery — it was great to have that much support. It was a little overwhelming. Your heart’s racing and everything. But it was so much fun.

“I’m a sister first and I’m going to support her 100 percent. It was great that she won.”

“I was still rooting her on, but I really wanted to win anyway,” Sarah said with a laugh.

With highly regarded eighth-grader Brockstedt right with the Lydics, the Seahawks have a pretty formidable nucleus. Brockstedt, the daughter of former Dover High golfer Chase Brockstedt, carded as low as a 31 in a nine-hole match this spring.

“Between them, I think there were certainly a lot of nerves,” Sussex Academy coach Tim Whelan said about the Lydics. “But the result was great.

“They’re close friends, they play a lot of golf together. Sure, there’s a little bit of a rivalry. But they have absolute admiration for each other and their abilities.”

After the three Seahawks, CR took the next three spots in the individual standings — Even Gebhart (74), Matthew Reed (76) and Lilly Wagner (81).

Next week, Sussex Academy will get the chance to make even more history for the school when the two-day DIAA state tournament begins at Maple Dale Country Club. While upstate programs have no doubt noted the Seahawks’ scores, they’ll go into the tourney as something of an unknown.

It’s worth noting that female players have won four straight individual state titles.

“I think our scores really helped ... kind of put us on the map,” said Hannah Lydic. “But I think they’re going to be a little shocked when they see a little school from the south.”