USC claimed its fifth victory of the season and captured the Pacific 12 Conference Women’s Golf Championship for the sixth time by three strokes over arch-rival UCLA at Ruby Hill Golf Club in Pleasanton.
Junior Gabriela Then, the last player on the course for USC, parred the final three holes to nail down the victory for the Trojans, who started the final round with a 13-shot lead.
USC, coached by Andrea Gaston, finished at 278-275-293–846, 18-under, followed by UCLA at 282-284-283–849, Arizona State at 285-284-282–851, Arizona at 286-280-290–856 and Colorado at 286-284-294–864.
Washington was sixth at 289-292-285–866, followed by Stanford at 287-294-290–871,
Oregon at 286-289-303–878, California at 295-289-297–881, Oregon State at 292-293-
297–882 and Washington State at 287-294-303–884.
Linnea Strom of Arizona State, a freshman from Sweden, took the individual title at 71-68-66–205, 11-under, followed by Bronte Law of UCLA at 70-70-66–206, while Then finished at 70-65-73–208 to tie for third with Lilia Vu of UCLA, who came in at 70-69-69–208.
Monica Vaughn of Arizona State shot 69-72-69–210 to tie for fifth with Charlotte Thomas of Washington, who finished at 75-67-68–210, Krystal Quihuis of Arizona, who wound up at 72-69-69–210, and Alexis Keating of Colorado, who totaled 70-66-74–210.
Haley Moore of Arizona was ninth at 66-72-73–211, while Karen Chung of USC finished at 71-69-73–213 to tie for 10th with Trojan teammate Tiffany Chan, who wound up at 67-72-74–213.
Lucia Gutierrez led Cal in a tie for 12th at 71-72-72–215, while Lauren Kim of Stanford tied for 20th at 71-75-71–217.
Rounding out the scoring for champion USC were Robynn Ree in a tie for 12th at 70-69-76–215 and Kyung Kim in a tie for 18th at 71-72-73–216.
The Trojans move on to the NCAA Regionals on May 5-7. USC has won 11 regional titles, including six in a row, both national records.
