Golf is an individual sport, a game that tests one’s mental fortitude and rewards the best with accolades designed for a sole person’s work.
But over the course of the 2018-19 season, the Southern California women’s golf team has checked almost all its collective boxes. A No. 1 national team ranking, a Pac-12 championship and six other tournament victories have the Trojans seeking the program’s fourth national title heading into regionals on May 6-8.
Punahou graduates Allisen Corpuz and Aiko Leong and Kaiser alum Malia Nam have been key contributors to the team’s stellar season. For most tournaments, the roster of 10 competes for five spots beforehand based on factors including previous play and qualifying competitions in practice. Even if one is left off the tournament roster, that iron sharpening iron approach has been healthy for the team.
“It’s just cool to be able to be on a team where we’re all super competitive with each other — we know we have to play really well for qualifying and whatnot, but we’re also super close,” Leong said. “Just being able to share the wins together, we are all super happy for each other when we do well. I just think that’s really cool and that’s definitely what the team experience is all about.
“We’re all genuinely really, really happy for each other when someone plays well or someone qualifies for a tournament or wins a tournament, or when our team wins a tournament.”
Leong started her collegiate career at BYU but transferred after her freshman season in 2017 in hopes of growing her game under legendary Trojans coach Andrea Gaston. Despite Gaston’s departure for Texas A&M last June, the team is thriving in Justin Silverstein’s first year at the helm. For Leong, the familiarity with friends already on USC’s campus as well as a friendship with Corpuz that dates back to their childhoods helped ease the transition.
“Allisen obviously, we’ve literally grown up together and been in the same school since we were 5. We know each other really, really well from being teammates through high school,” Leong said. “For Malia, she and I are able to connect pretty well because we’re both from Hawaii — we both always talk about things we miss, our different experiences.”
Corpuz finished her prep career with an individual HHSAA title in 2016 at Wailua Golf Course and followed that with two top-20 finishes during her freshman season at USC.
She was a Women’s Golf Coaches Association honorable mention All-American as a sophomore and earned All-Pac-12 honorable mention status as well. She was a mainstay on the Trojans’ squad as one of just two players to compete in each tournament, finishing in the top ten four times.
This season, Corpuz earned Pac-12 honorable mention again after a fifth-place individual finish at the conference championships held April 15-17 in Palos Verdes, Calif., with a three-round total of even-par 213. She also made the cut at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, finishing in a tie for 17th with a three-round total of 3-over 219 from April 3 to 6. In between the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments, she also plans to play in a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier. In last year’s U.S. Women’s Open, she missed the cut with a two-round total of 5-over 149. Because she played as an amateur, she maintained her college eligibility.
The grind of collegiate golf takes up a total of 20 hours per week on the weekdays, but Corpuz says she still puts some more time in on the weekends. The lifestyle was an adjustment at first, but “once you figure out how to manage your time, well, it’s really not too bad, and I’ve had just a really fun experience in college,” she says.
Nam, meanwhile, has enjoyed a stellar freshman season that earned her All-Pac-12 first-team honors. She’s had four top-seven finishes this season and has been selected to Team USA for the 2019 Arnold Palmer Cup set for June 7-9 at The Alotian Club in Roland, Ark.
“I kind of had an idea of where I would stand on the team, but I didn’t expect to have all this success with USC,” she said. “We’ve won some tournaments, and also winning Pac-12 will give us some good momentum heading into nationals. I knew coming to USC that there would be a lot of success because USC had such a good golf program already, but I’m glad to be a part of it.”
USC will find out where it’ll play its regional during today’s announcement on Golf Channel at 11:30 a.m. The top six teams from each regional will advance to the finals on May 17-22 at the Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.
Winning the Pac-12 tournament was quite the omen for the Trojans, who got through the gauntlet of perhaps the toughest conference in women’s college golf, home of the past four national team champions (Stanford in 2015, Washington in 2016, Arizona State in 2017 and Arizona in 2018).
“I think we’re really trying to prepare in the same way,” Corpuz said. “We’ve just been focusing on taking one shot at a time and put in the right work to get the wins. I think we’re good enough if we go out there and play some good golf. It’ll all take care of itself.”
AROUND THE NATION
BASEBALL
>> Codie Paiva, Kamehameha ’15: The Loyola Marymount senior dropped to 5-3 in a 5-0 loss to Saint Mary’s (Calif.) after allowing three earned runs in seven innings with seven strikeouts. Paiva still holds a team-best 1.84 ERA through 10 starts for the Lions (24-15, 12-6 West Coast Conference).
>> Pikai Winchester, ‘Iolani ’15: The Grand Canyon senior went 5-for-13 in a weekend series against Seattle with two runs, two RBIs and two doubles, helping the Antelopes (20-18, 8-7 WAC) to a three-game series sweep. Through 37 games this season, Winchester is hitting .302 with four home runs and 25 RBIs.
>> Keith Torres, Saint Louis ’17: The Sacramento State sophomore went 3-for-12 in a weekend series against Chicago State with a hit in each game while playing error-free at shortstop. The Hornets (26-13, 12-3) sit alone atop the WAC standings.
>> Pono Anderson, Saint Louis ’15: The UT-Arlington senior improved to 6-3 with a 6-3 win over No. 19 TCU on April 16, scattering five hits and a walk with five strikeouts in five shutout innings. As of Saturday, the Mavericks (28-13, 14-4 Sun Belt) led the Sun Belt’s Western Division.
>> Cole Cabrera, Punahou ’17: The Cal Poly sophomore went 3-for-11 with two RBIs and a double, starting all three games in left field in a weekend series with Long Beach State. The Mustangs (19-17, 10-2 Big West) have won six straight and trail conference leader UC Santa Barbara (30-5, 8-1) by half a game in the standings.
>> Trayson Kubo, Leilehua ’15: The Stephen F. Austin senior earned his first win of the season on Saturday in a 3-0 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, striking out three while allowing four hits and a walk in six shutout innings for the Lumberjacks (18-22, 11-7 Southland).
>> Micah Hee, Kamehameha ‘16: The Cal State LA junior allowed three runs, three walks and six hits over 6 1/3 innings in a no-decision in a 7-3 loss to UC San Diego on Saturday. Hee remains 5-1 in 12 appearances, including seven starts, this season for the Golden Eagles (18-23).
>> Kai Terada-Herzer, Punahou ’17: The Amherst (Mass.) sophomore went 2-for-5 with two runs against Wheaton (Mass.) on April 17, the team’s most recent game. Terada-Herzer is hitting .318 in 24 games played this season for the Mammoths (14-10).
>> Aaron Renaud, Saint Louis ‘17: The Saint Martin’s freshman batted 4-for-14 with two runs and an RBI in a weekend series with Concordia (Ore.). The Saints (17-23, 13-18 GNAC) split the four-game series with the Cavaliers.
>> Micah McNicoll, Kamehameha ’16: The Saint Martin’s junior went 5-for-13 in a weekend series with Concordia with four runs, a triple and two RBIs.
>> Tanner Inouye, Moanalua ’16: The Saint Martin’s junior hurler broke the school record for strikeouts in a single season by striking out 11 batters against Central Washington in a 5-2 win on April 12, eclipsing the previous record of 61. On April 15, Inouye was named the GNAC pitcher of the week for the second time this season and third time in his career. Inouye has 70 strikeouts in 10 starts this season.
>> Andrei Stoyanow, Kapolei ’18: The Hendrix (Ark.) freshman improved to 6-0 on the season in a 6-1 win over Rhodes on Saturday, allowing one run and seven hits to go with two strikeouts and three walks in five innings. In 125 at-bats this season, Stoyanow is hitting .256 with a home run and 22 RBIs.
>> Tyler Fujimoto, Pearl City ’15: The William Jessup senior earned a win and a save during a doubleheader against Hope International on April 17. In the first game, he struck out seven and spaced four hits in 31⁄3 innings in a 6-3 win. He then recorded the final out of an 8-6 win in the nightcap for his fifth save of the season. The Warriors (28-12, 18-10 GSAC) took three of four games in their series against Hope.
GYMNASTICS
>> Maela Lazaro, Moanalua ’16: The Oregon State junior scored a 9.8875 on the beam in the semifinals of the NCAA championships in Fort Worth, Texas, last Friday. Lazaro’s score put the Beavers within 0.1375 points of earning a spot in the team finals. OSU’s team score of 196.9 was good for sixth place overall, the school’s highest finish ever.
SOFTBALL
>> Jocelyn Alo, Campbell ’17: The Oklahoma sophomore went 5-for-8 in a weekend series against No. 11 Texas with two runs, three RBIs and her eighth home run of the season in the series finale on Sunday for the top-ranked Sooners (41-2, 12-0 Big 12).
WOMEN’S GOLF
>> Mariel Galdiano, Punahou ’16: The UCLA junior finished in a tie for 13th at the Pac-12 championships with a three-round total of 5-over 218. As a team, the Bruins finished in sixth with a three-round total of 28-over 880.
MEN’S VOLLEYBALL
>> Ethan Siegfried, Punahou ’17: The Long Beach State sophomore earned one of 12 roster spots on the U.S. Men’s World University Games team, which will compete in the World University Games on July 3-14 in Napoli, Italy. The team will be coached by Purdue Fort Wayne’s Ryan Perrotte. Also selected to the team was Stanford’s Jaylen Jasper, the son of Navy offensive coordinator and former Hawaii football standout Ivin Jasper.
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