College of the Canyons takes team and individual top honor at SoCal women's golf regional
By John Sherrard
Mt. San Antonio College Athletics
SAN DIMAS - For the second year in a row the College of the Canyons (COC) women's golf team dominated the CCCAA Southern California Championship with a 29-stroke margin of victory at Via Verde Country Club on Monday.
Leading the way with medalist honors was sophomore Haruka Koda of Canyons with a two-day total 145 (72-73). This was also the second year in a row that COC had the medalist as COC's Jessie Lin won in 2018. Finishing third by way of a tiebreaker this year was Mt. San Antonio College's Precious Saelee, 158 (78-80) and Lin, 158 (81-77) was fourth.
"I've been working hard this season and I've been working on my putting," Koda said. "The course was very narrow and so I just focused on just hitting the ball straight and didn't use the driver on every hole."
Finishing eight strokes behind Koda in second place was sophomore Katie Stribling of Saddleback with a two-round score of 153 (78-75).
"I knew that we had a good chance at the start of the season because we returned four of the girls," Canyons coach Gary Peterson said. "Our goal was to try and repeat and I think we got one milestone out of the way by winning SoCal's and now we have to prepare for next week."
The top four teams headed to the CCCAA State Championships at the par-72 Morro Bay Golf Course next Sunday were Canyons, 645 (327-318), Saddleback, 674 (346-328), College of the Desert (COD), 682 (344-338) and Santa Barbara City College, 702 (350-352).
SBCC edged out Mt. San Antonio College, 706 (360-346) for the fourth position by four strokes. Cuyamaca led the nine teams with two individuals from the field of seven qualifiers
Saelee was the top individual qualifier followed by Issa Murguia (Cuyamaca), Geri De Ville (Fullerton), Kathy Henderson (Palomar), Katherine Chan (Mt. SAC), Olivia Block (Moorpark), Victoria Nease (Cuyamaca). Cristina Liu of Mt. SAC is an alternate.
(Mt. San Antonio College Athletics)