Canyons Set to Tee Off at State Championship Tourney

After a two-year hiatus, the College of the Canyons women's golf team will once again be teeing off at the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) State Championships.

The Cougars placed third with a score of 696 at the two-day CCCAA Southern California Regional Championships on Nov. 5-6 to trail first place Santa Barbara City College (661) and second place Cuyamaca College (662). Moorpark College (706) claimed the final qualifying spot for the state championship tourney with its fourth place finish.

Canyons, Moorpark and Santa Barbara all hail from the Western State Conference, with Cuyamaca representing the Pacific Coast Conference.

Those schools will be joined by defending state champion Sierra College, along with Modesto College, Cañada College and Butte College from the northern region.

Full results from both regional events can be found here.

The Cougars, who placed second in the WSC, have not played at the state championship tournament since 2014. That season COC finished four shots back of College of the Desert to claim runner up honors.

Canyons previously won women's golf team state titles in 2001 and 2007. The program also claimed individual state titles in 2007 (Jenny Lee) and 2011 (Kris Grimes).

The 2017 SoCal Championship event, which was held at the Temecula Creek Inn Golf Course, featured 10 schools vying for the opportunity to play for a state title. A number of individual golfers also competed at the event, bringing the total field to more than 60 student-athletes. 

COC freshman JoJo Roecker continued her spectacular season with a fifth place individual finish to help pace the Cougars.

Roecker's day one score of 77 tied with Elly Carlson of Santa Barbara for third-best of the day behind Georgia Shevitt (76) of Moorpark and Kaylee Jeon (75) of Fullerton. 

Jeon would eventually earn medalist honors with her combined score of 152 (75/77).

Roecker was also included among the day-two leaders with her round of 80, which left her just five shots back of medalist honors with a combined score of 157.

Cassandra Lee put together a strong tourney with nearly identical scores of 83 and 84 to place 15th overall at the event, just four strokes out of the top-10.

Gina Chung was the third place golfer for Canyons ranking 33rd overall with a two-day score of 181 (90/91). Alexandra Guerrero tied for 38th overall at 191 (99/92) and Stephanie Blin (101/97) was 52nd at 198.

The 36-hole CCCAA State Championship tourney will be hosted by Santa Barbara at Morro Bay Golf Course on Nov. 12-13. Teams will begin their first rounds on Sunday morning followed by a shotgun round on Monday.

In addition to the eight qualifying teams, the top six individuals from each regional event that were not rostered by one of the advancing schools also qualified to compete.

Stay up to date on all this season's action by following the College of the Canyons Athletic department on social media at @COCathletics on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

— Jesse Muñoz/COC Sports Information