Sharon Park spearheaded a third straight tournament win for the University of the Fraser Valley women’s golf team, while the men’s squad finished fourth at the Douglas Invitational at Westwood Plateau Golf and Country Club in Coquitlam.
Park picked up her second individual tourney win in three PacWest conference starts, firing rounds of 76 on Saturday and 80 on Sunday to finish ahead of teammates Jennifer Kell (163) and Hannah Dirksen (164). Park also leapfrogged Dirksen in the overall standings – she’s amassed 483 strokes through three tourneys, with Dirksen (489) and Kell (492) in pursuit.
“Sharon’s been playing some really solid golf, but that said, I don’t think we’ve even seen the best of her yet,” Cascades head coach Chris Bertram said. “She’s still learning to deal with the nerves of playing in a team competition, but all the signs are there, and we’re expecting big things from her going forward.”
The Cascades women’s team finished 17 strokes ahead of the UBC Okanagan Heat on the weekend, and now lead the aggregate standings by 42 strokes with just one event left on the conference schedule.
The UFV men opened the weekend 11 strokes back of the Camosun Chargers in the overall race, and they made up four strokes during Saturday’s opening round. But they gave back those four strokes, plus three more, on Sunday to fall 14 strokes back in the aggregate.
The Langara Falcons won the Douglas tourney, combining for 591 strokes to finish ahead of the UBCO Heat (593), Camosun (595) and UFV (598).
“The tournament this weekend, it was kind of one step forward and two steps back,” Bertram said. “On Saturday, we’d made up some ground on the conference leaders, but we slipped back on Sunday and didn’t have our best day. But that said, we’ve solidified our spot in second, and we have one more tournament to chase down the conference win.”
Zach Olson was once again the top Cascade on the weekend, carding rounds of 74 and 72 to finish tied for fifth individually, seven strokes back of UBCO’s James Casorso. UFV’s Halen Davis (150) and Cole Briggs (150) were tied for ninth, Connor O’Dell (151) was 13th, Nick Guenther (154) was T16, and Kaleb Fisher (155) was T19.
Olson (435 total strokes) and Davis (443) are sixth and seventh, respectively, in the overall individual race, where Langara’s Jacob Vanderpas (428) owns a three-stroke lead.
