SUWANEE, Ga. -- In exclusive voting by the head coaches of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), the league office today announced the 2023 postseason award winners in the sport of women's golf. 2023 All-SCAC Women's Golf Team
After winning the program's third consecutive SCAC team title and posting the league's best finish at the NCAA Championships since 2013, Trinity University was rewarded with two of the three major conference postseason awards as Alejandra Sanchez De la Fuente Molino was selected the league's Player of the Year and Tiger head coach Shelby DeVore was named Coach of the Year. In that same balloting, Southwestern University's Isabella Valenzuela was chosen Freshman of the Year.
Sanchez, a sophomore from Marbella, Spain, was the league's medalist at the 2023 SCAC Championships at Riverhill Country Club, firing rounds of 75 (+3) and 78 (+6) to finish at 153 (+9). Her two-day score of 153 is tied for the fifth-best 36-hole performance in SCAC history. Sanchez led the field in par 4 scoring (+5), finished first with 24 pars and was tied for sixth with three birdies.
Over the course of the 2022-23 season, the super sophomore, who finished the season as the 30th-ranked women's golfer in Division III, posted five top-three finishes, including victories at the Space City Classic as well as the aforementioned individual title at this year's SCAC Championships.
At the 2023 NCAA Division III Women's Golf National Championship at the El Campeon Golf Course in Howie-in-the-Hills, Fla., Sanchez finished in a tie for 19th individually in the 151-player field and led Trinity with a total score of 236 (79-77-80). She had two birdies in the final round and just missed three straight rounds in the 70s.
Last year's Freshman of the Year, Sanchez is the second consecutive and fourth overall Trinity women's golfer to earn SCAC Golfer of the Year honors. Her teammate Kiona Hsiu took home the league's top honor a year ago.
Southwestern's Valenzuela, a first-year from League City, Texas, posted an 86.45 scoring average in five tournaments and 11 rounds over the 2022-23 playing season in earning Freshman of the Year honors. Her low round of 80 came in the final round of the Alamo Classic, and her best finish was a 21st-place showing at the West Region Invitational at Berry Creek Country Club in early April.
Valenzuela is second Southwestern woman to earn Freshman of the Year honors and the first since the Pirates' Leilani McDaniel earned the accolade following the 2016-17 season.
DeVore earned her second SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honor in as many seasons after returning to lead the Trinity program she starred on as a player from 2015 to 2018. This season, she led the Tigers to another wire-to-wire victory at the 2023 conference championships, and the team's two-day total of 627 tied its own SCAC record that was established at the 2022 event. At this year's championships, Trinity finished with a team-high 17 birdies over 36 holes and posted 96 pars en route to its third consecutive team title.
Trinity is the first program since Southwestern in 2007-09 to win three-straight SCAC women's golf championships and the title was the seventh in program history (1995, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022), tying with DePauw for the second-most in SCAC history.
Three weeks later, the No. 19/20 Tigers finished in a tie for 12th at the NCAA Division III Championships, hosted by the Mission Inn Resort & Club in Howie-in-the-Hills, Fla. Trinity posted a total of 983 over the three rounds of play (the third round was cancelled due to an "unplayable hole for the entire tournament field) which tied with Illinois Wesleyan University for the 12th spot. The finish was the best in school history at the national championships, besting the 16th-place finish in the program's first appearance at the event last season.
