MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. -- Olivia Lansing, a member of the Drake women's golf team, captured the Minnesota Women's Public Golf Association Match Play championship, defeating Leigh Klasse, the 2007 Minnesota Golf Association Women's Player of the Year, on the 21st hole of match play.

Lansing, a native of Dellwood, Minn., picked up where she left off in concluding her sophomore year at Drake when she won individual honors at the Missouri Valley Conferece championship in Omaha, Neb., April 15.

After shooting a 2-under-par 69 at Phalen Golf Course for the regulation 18 holes Sunday, Lansing had to go extra holes before finally emerging with a victory on her 21st hole of the day.

After tying first two bonus holes with pars, Lansing finally won at the 195-yard third hole, where she saved par with nearly perfect pitch shot from 10 yards left of the green. It grazed the cup and came to rest within a foot of the hole, so close that it was conceded.

Klasse, who was trying for her second Minnesota Women's Public Golf Association Match Play title in three years, hit her tee shot into a left front bunker, blasted out to about 8 feet and missed her par putt by about an inch.

"I expected it to be hard," Lansing said of the championship match. "Leigh's a great player; so I knew I'd have to play really well to beat her."

She did. Lansing made three birdies, an eagle and three bogeys on a course that was set up to be a championship test. There were a few pins that were easily accessible, such as the one at No. 16, which both players birdied, but most of them were pretty well tucked away.
Klasse started slowly and was 2 over par after eight holes. But she played the last 10 holes of regulation in 3 under -- and didn't make another bogey until the third playoff hole.

In 2007, Lansing emerged as one of Minnesota's best female amateur golfers. She finished second in the State Four-Ball, second in the State Match Play, and tied for first in the Mixed Amateur (she and partner Ross Hammann lost the title in a playoff).

The former Class A runner-up in the state high school tournament (she finished second to four-time small-school champ Katie Detlefsen in 2006) also produced a third-place finish in the 2007 Minnesota State Open.

Basically, Lansing did everything last year except win a state championship.

Lansing (whose younger sister Natalie won the inaugural Class A high school championship earlier this month under the state's new three-class format) got off to a fast start against Klasse, with a birdie at the first hole.

She went 2 up with a par at the third (foreshadowing what would happen on the decisive hole in the playoff) and 3 up when she birdied the par-5 seventh.

"I knew I was going to have to make birdies," Lansing said. "When you're playing against someone as good as Leigh, pars just don't cut it."

Klasse trimmed the lead to 2 up with a birdie of her own at the ninth, but Lansing went 3 up again when she made an eagle at the 412-yard, par-5 11th.

No. 11 was one of the holes where the pins were hidden in remote parts of the green. But Lansing, who has added about 20 yards to her tee shots since last summer -- through a combination of weight training and better swing fundamentals -- set herself up with a good drive and hit her 11-wood (the equivalent of a 4-iron) to about 20 feet, then made the putt.

Klasse won the 135-yard 12th with a par, and she got another hole back when Lansing missed a 2-footer for par at the 14th. At the 15th, it appeared Lansing would regain her 2-up advantage when she hit her approach to within 3 feet of the cup, after Klasse had put her second shot about a foot to the right of the green.

No matter. Klasse chipped in for birdie, forcing Lansing to make her 3-footer for birdie into a cup that had suddenly shrunk just to keep the 1-up lead.

That lead disappeared when Klasse very nearly aced the 16th. Her tee shot wound up within 2 feet, and she had her second birdie in a row.

The next four holes were all tied with pars, although Klasse came agonizingly close to winning the match at the 18th, where her 15-footer for birdie lipped out, and Lansing's 18-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole died just short of the front lip.

At No. 3, she pulled her tee shot next to a tree, about pin high. It didn't look all that promising, but Lansing quickly realized that she had a swing, albeit barely.

"I had about 3 or 4 inches to spare," she said. "I always try to be positive, and I had a good feeling about that shot. It came off exactly the way I envisioned it. The ball landed right where I intended it to."

In the Championship Consolation match, things didn't go quite so well for Lansing's teammate at Drake: Kelly Godwin. She was 3 up on Gretchen Huhnerkoch through eight holes, but the Burnsville senior-to-be played the next nine holes in even par, won six of them and won the match 2&1.