Lilia Vu and Mariel Galdiano of UCLA finished 1-2 in the individual standings and led third-ranked UCLA to the Pacific 12 Conference Women’s Golf Championship by 21 strokes over Colorado at Sewailo Golf Club in Tucson, Ariz.
The Bruins carded a winning score of 290-285-287–862, 2-under par, while Colorado finished at 296-286-301–883, with Stanford third at 296-298-290–884, followed by Arizona at 305-293-289–887, USC at 304-303-287–894 and Arizona State at 307-292-296–895.
Washington was seventh at 308-292-301–901, followed by Oregon State at 317-299-302–918, Oregon at 318-308-293–919, California at 316-309-306–931 and Washington State at 316-314-305–935.
UCLA captured its sixth conference championship, but the first since 2006.
“We’ve been so close on multiple years, even the last three, it feels so good to finally play really well and not have any worries coming down the stretch,” said UCLA Coach Carrie Forsyth, who claimed her fourth conference title with the Bruins.
“Lilia played phenomenal golf and she’s been playing great. I can’t say enough about her as a person and a player, she is just so good.”
Vu became the fifth Bruin to win the conference individual title with Forsyth as coach, and claimed her fourth straight victory to set a UCLA record, breaking a tie with Charlotte Mayorkas, won won three in a row in 2004.
“I’m just really proud of how we all played this week; it was really tough,” said Vu, the reigning Southern California Golf Association Women’s Amateur champion. “We’ve been working hard, so it’s nice to see it finally pay off.”
Vu, a sophomore from Fountain Valley, posted a score of 71-66-72–209, followed by Galdiano at 73-73-69–215, while Andrea Lee of Stanford totaled 72-70-75–217 to tie for third with Linnea Strom of Arizona State, who finished at 74-74-69–217.
Haley Moore shot 78-69-72–219 to tie for fifth with Arizona teammate Krystal Quihuis, who wound up at 77-71-71–219, while Tiffany Chin of USC recorded a score of 75-70-75–220 to tie for seventh with Brittany Fan of Colorado, who came in at 74-72-74–220.
Esther Lee of Colorado totaled 76-71-74–221 and tied for ninth with Julianne Alvarez of Washington, who finished at 78-70-73–221.
Jiyoon Jang led Cal in a tie for 16th at 81-71-73–225.
Rounding out the scoring for champion UCLA were Bethany Wu in a tie for 11th at 71-70-81–222, Erin Choi in 14th at 75-76-72–223 and Claire Legaspi in a tie for 39th at 77-
81-74–232.
