Released on: May 5 2004
Contact: Jerry Hannula - Saddleback SID, (949) 582-4490
jhannula@saddleback.edu

Saddleback College golf coach Bill Cunerty has already set one community college coaching standard this year. On Monday (May 10), he'll be looking to add another milestone achievement to his banner year.

In the fall, Cunerty became the first coach in California community college history to win a state championship in three different sports as his Saddleback women's golf team earned a title and added to his coaching success in football (1996) and men's golf (1983, '85, '89, '94, '96). On Monday, his Gaucho men's team will be competing in the Citi California Community Colleges Commission on Athletics Men's Golf Championship at the SCGA Course in Murrieta. If Saddleback wins, Cunerty will become the first golf coach to win state titles with both the men's and women's programs . . . and he will have done it in the same year. No college has won both the men's and women's golf titles in the same school year.

State championship events are nothing new to Cunerty or his Saddleback golfers. Cunerty-led teams have competed in 18 of the past 22 state championship events and two of this year's golfers - Blair Harkins (Palos Verdes' Peninsula HS) and Garrett Lipus (El Toro HS) - helped the Gauchos to a fourth-place finish at last year's state championship event.

Harkins, the Orange Empire Conference Player of the Year, is the team captain and is averaging 74.0 strokes through 21 rounds this season. Lipus, a first-team all-conference selection, is averaging 74.7 strokes per round.

The other Gauchos playing in Monday's championship tournament have equally impressive stroke averages. Pat Strandemo (La Costa Canyon HS) is averaging 74.2 strokes, Ben Miller (Palos Verdes' Peninsula HS) and Andrew Crowe (Murrieta Valley HS) are both averaging 74.3 strokes, and Kevin Kim (San Diego Christian HS) is averaging 74.8 strokes. Miller and Kim both earned all-conference honors.

In order to capture the state championship, the Gauchos will have to get past Southern California foes College of the Desert and College of the Canyons along with Northern California competitors Monterey Peninsula, American River and Foothill.

Desert, which has won state championship titles in 1966, 1990, 1995, and 1998, edged Saddleback by eight strokes in the Southern California Regional finals held last Monday (May 3) at the SCPGA course in Beaumont by shooting a team score of 720. Canyons (740), which has captured state championship titles in 1993, 2000, and 2002, finished 12 strokes behind Saddleback (728).

In the Northern California Regional held at the Stockton Country Club, Monterey Peninsula posted a team score of 716 to edge out American River (718) while Foothill (724) wasn't far behind. Monterey Peninsula has three state titles to its credit (1976, 1978, 1987).

Napa Valley College (743) won last year's state championship held at the Kings River Country Club outside of Fresno, while College of the Desert placed third (751), Saddleback finished fourth (760), and Monterey Peninsula finished eighth (774).

www.saddleback.edu/athletics

NOTE: Each team is allowed six golfers, with the top five scores making up the team score. This is a 36-hole, one-day event. Par is 72 for the 7,036-yard SCGA course (rating 74.6).