CCS women almost a gimme for golf title

The women’s golf team from the Community Colleges of Spokane has won every golf tournament the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges has sanctioned this season – and even finished second in a tournament with four-year schools to start the season.

All of which makes them, without question, the favorites to win the NWAACC tournament that begins today at Liberty Lake’s MeadowWood Golf Course and concludes Tuesday at Hangman Valley.

Men’s teams will tee off at approximately 8:30 this morning; women at 11. Tuesday, the order flip-flops.

“We’ve had a very good season,” women’s coach Christie Delsanders said. “We won all those tournaments by quite a margin. Our last victory (at the Walla Walla Invitational earlier this month), we won by 32 strokes.”

The women’s team, with four of six golfers from Washington, is loaded.

“Five of the six women on the team are good enough to win this tournament,” Delsanders said.

That’s not a bold prediction by a confident coach. Three different Sasquatch sophomore golfers have won medalist honors at tournaments this season.

Beth Wrigley, from Pataskala, Ohio, earned top honors at the Green River Invitational; Kelli Parker, from Lakeside High in Nine Mile Falls, was the low scorer at the Columbia Basin College Invitational; and Sterling Beardslee, from Kettle Falls, was medalist at both the Treasure Valley Invitational and the team’s own Spokane Bigfoot Invitational.

Christina Burns, a sophomore from Hellgate High in Missoula, Mont., and freshmen Megan Bruce (Kennewick) and Tammy Paul (Woodland) round out the squad.

Bruce, along with Wrigley, was named to the All-Eastern Region team last week.

Team scoring favors the Sasquatch. In women’s golf, teams field six golfers, with the three low scores counting toward the team competition.

Men’s golf scores fields six golfers and score four deep. Team scores are tallied daily, meaning a different combination could score the second day of the tournament.

The CCS men are a good bet to make it a clean, hometown sweep.

Brent Walsh, a freshman from Central Valley, was the medalist at the Walla Walla Invitational and is a pre-tournament favorite, as is Rob Anderson, a freshman from Davenport. Anderson was the medalist at the Green River Invitational and the CCS scholar athlete of the month for April.

“What’s really cold is that most of these golfers are all local kids,” said Delsanders, who doubles as an assistant coach for the men’s squad.

Sophomores Gary Dupree (Northwest Christian) and Andy Hessen (Three Forks, Mont.) and freshmen Brian Hall (University High), Brandon Adams (David Douglas High, Portland) and Matt Trudgeon (Colville) also play for the Sasquatch men.