Women of Troy looking for a second chance


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This time around, they’re going to finish. Eight months after the then-No. 3 women’s golf team lost the lead on the last day of the NCAA Championships, the Women of Troy prepare to make a similar run with a different ending.

With as much talent as any team in the nation, the No. 9 team has its sights set on their third national championship in eight years. The Women of Troy look to their four returning All-Americans — sophomore Jennifer Song, junior Lizette Salas, senior Belen Mozo and senior Stefanie Endstrasser — to lead them back to the top.

The team was strong out of the gate in the fall, winning the Mason Rudolph Championship to begin the season. Song captured the individual title at the Mason Rudolph and the subsequent Stanford Invitational title. The then-No. 1 Women of Troy looked ready to run through the fall invitational season, until Song took time off to play on the LPGA tour. At the NCAA Fall Preview, the first tournament without Song, the team finished 16th of 18, its worst finish in five years. After Mozo withdrew with an injury, the team fell from first place on the first day to 16th on the third day, culminating in Mozo withdrawing in the final round with an injury. The team bounced back to finish third at the Turtle Bay Collegiate Invitational the next week, but its streak of 32 straight top ten finishes was already broken.

This semester, the team looks to avoid such a drop off. With the roster healthier than it has been all fall and the renewed presence of Song, the team looks to pick up where it left off at the Mason Rudolph on its way to the Championship.

Song, the No. 1 golfer in the country, is returning for her final semester. She participated in just two tournaments in the fall and came away with two titles. She competed on the LPGA tour during the remainder of the fall 2009 season and will be doing so again this spring. Song was invited to play in the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April, one of the four major tournaments on the tour.

Salas, coming off an individual victory at Turtle Bay, looks to become a three-time All-American this season. She spent the fall recovering from a back injury sustained over the summer but was in prime form by the end of the season. She hopes to maintain the momentum she gained at the end of the fall throughout the spring. Last year, Salas finished tied for 18th at the Championship and looks to improve on that finish this season.

Mozo, looking to become the first four-time All-American in program history, spent the fall season battling a shoulder injury lingering from the end of her junior season. After surgery over the summer, she had to withdraw from the NCAA Fall Preview because of the pain. After resting the injury over the break, she appears healthy for the spring.

Endstrasser continued to struggle with consistency throughout the fall, appearing in only two tournaments, in which she finished tied for 21st and 79th. She’ll be competing with senior Caroline Kim, sophomore Inah Park and freshman Cyna Rodriguez for playing time throughout the spring. Kim and Park were the Women of Troy’s only members to play in every tournament round in the fall season. Rodriguez enters the spring coming off a victory at the Philippine Ladies Open Amateur Golf Championship in January.

The team begins its spring season this week at the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge at the Palos Verdes Golf Club, in Palos Verdes, Calif. The Challenge will be a good preview of the competition for the rest of the season; it features six of the top 10 teams in the country, highlighted by Pac-10 rivals No. 1 Arizona State, No. 2 UCLA and No. 10 Cal. The important thing to this team is not the start but the finish. A repeat of last year’s National Championship is not what it’s looking for. Come June, this team wants to finish.