The Chattanooga Mocs women’s golf team heads to Lexington, S.C., for the Southern Conference Championships this weekend. Play starts Sunday morning with 54 holes on tap with 18 holes per day through the final round on Tuesday.
This is the 10th SoCon Championships for the program. The Mocs have finished first or second eight times in the previous nine. Five wins – 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 & 2014 – are bookended by runner-up endings in 2009, 2015 and 2016.
Sophomore Monica San Juan leads the squad in scoring. Her 74.76 per 18 average is currently the seventh-best in school history. It’s the best by a sophomore just ahead of the standard set a year ago by Megan Woods (74.86).
She’s joined this week by Cristina Perez, Holly Morgan, Woods and Maria Pineiro. Woods won the 2016 event in a five-hole playoff over Furman’s Alice Chen. Woods was the fifth Moc in the previous six championships to win the individual title – Emma de Groot (2011), Jordan Britt (2012), Agathe Sauzon (2013) & Emily McLennan (2014).
Four of the nine league schools are ranked in the Golfstat top 100 led by No. 10 Furman. ETSU (77), UTC (82) and Mercer (90) are next on the list. The Paladins (4) and Mocs (5) have won the last nine SoCon titles.
The Chattanooga Mocs men’s golf team tees off Sunday at the Southern Conference Championships. The championships return to Pinehurst No. 9 at the famed Pinehurst, N.C., golf community.
The Mocs are in search of their seventh SoCon title. Five of the previous six – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013 – came under the guidance of 12th-year head coach Mark Guhne.
Seniors Wes Gosselin and Brooks Thomas leads the quintet east. Gosselin’s 72.07 stroke average paces the squad followed by Thomas’ 72.94. Stuart Thomas (73.76), Etienne Brault (73.78) and Phillip Hickam (74.71) round out the squad.
Chattanooga is the top-ranked team in the field at No. 93 in the Golfstat ratings. UNCG is close behind at No. 100 followed by ETSU (110) and Wofford (144).
Just eight shots separated the top five a season ago. The Bucs won by one over the Spartans with Furman (3 back), UTC (6) and the Terriers (8) in pursuit.
No. 9 has produced fantastic finishes over the previous three visits. The Mocs came in second by one shot in 2014 to Georgia Southern, while ETSU topped UNCG in a sudden-death playoff in 2015 before escaping with the one-shot victory last year.