LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- In exclusive voting by the head coaches of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), the league office today announced the 2022 postseason award winners in the sport of women's golf. 2022 All-SCAC Women's Golf Team
After receiving the conference's first team bid to the NCAA Tournament since 2013, Trinity University dominated the postseason accolades. Kiona Hsiu was named Golfer of the Year, while her teammate, Alejandra Sanchez De la Fuente Molino was selected Freshman of the Year. Completing the sweep of postseason honors, Tigers' head coach Shelby DeVore was named the league's Coach of the Year.
Hsiu, a sophomore from Missouri City, Texas, was the league's medalist at the 2022 SCAC Championships at Vaaler Creek, firing rounds of 75 (+3) and 73 (+1) to finish at 148 (+4) for the event - a new SCAC record for the lowest 36-hole score in conference history. She led the field in par 5 scoring (-4) for the second consecutive year, finished tied for first with seven birdies and was second with 20 pars. Hsiu is the first Trinity Tiger to earn individual medalist honors since Bridgette Lee back in 2013 and the third overall.
At the 2022 NCAA Division III Women's Golf National Championship at the Bay Oaks Country Club in Houston, Texas, Hsiu finished tied for 17th in the 151-player field, posting a four-round total of 298 (+10). That same week, she was named All-West Region by the Women's Golf Coaches Association.
Last year's Freshman of the Year, Hsiu is the third Trinity women's golfer to earn SCAC Golfer of the Year honors.
Sanchez De la Fuente Molino, a first-year from Marbella, Spain, earned First Team all-conference honors at the 2022 SCAC Women's Golf Championship, finishing with a two-round score of 162 (83-79) and in fifth place among individuals. In NCAA Championship play, the Spaniard stepped her game up another notch, finishing tops on her team and in seventh place overall with a four-round total of 293 (+5), which included a final round 69 that shot Sanchez De la Fuente Molino up 10 places on the individual leaderboard. The 69 was the tournament's fifth player round under the 70-mark and tied for the third-best performance through any set of 18 holes. The performance granted her All-America honorable mention recognition, which was officially announced yesterday.
Sanchez De la Fuente Molino is third consecutive Trinity golfer to earn Freshman of the Year honors, following teammate Raquel Hill's selection in 2019 and Hsiu's a season ago. Her selection marks the sixth overall for Trinity - the most of any program in conference history.
In her first year at the helm of the program she starred as a player from 2015-2018, DeVore led Trinity to a wire-to-wire victory at the 2022 championships, earning the program its second consecutive SCAC title with a convincing 24-shot victory at Vaaler Creek Golf Club. The Tigers shot a final round 304 to establish a new SCAC record for the lowest single team round in league history. Trinity’s two-day total of 627 established a new SCAC record, besting the 634 Southwestern shot at the 2019 championships.
The championship was the sixth SCAC title in program history (1995, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2021) for Trinity, the third most in SCAC history.
A few short weeks later, No. 14 Trinity earned the program's first-ever berth into the NCAA III Women's Golf National Championship, just barely missing the third-round cut as the Tigers produced a pair of top-20 individual performances.
Although the first Coach of the Year honor for DeVore, it is the sixth overall for a Trinity women's golf coach.
