Corner Canyon

TOSH Top 30 – #19 Corner Canyon’s first state championship

by
kurtj
July 7, 2016

Story and photos by Kurt Johnson

Editor’s Note – The TOSH Top 30 is our countdown of the top 30 stories from the 2015-16 school sports year, beginning with No. 30 and counting down, one story a day, to No. 1. The 2015-2016 high school sports year was filled with big performances, both team and individual. The act of narrowing down our initial list of top stories for our TOSH Top 30 stories of the year to just 30 was a difficult task. We asked people all over the state for input into our final list and beginning June 22, we are counting them down in reverse, from story No. 30 to story No. 1. Hopefully your favorite story of the past school year made our list.

No. 19 on our list is another tribute to firsts, but this time it’s the first state championship for a school. The Corner Canyon High girls golf team claimed the 4A state team title in the spring and it was the first-ever state banner for the young school in Draper.

#19 – Corner Canyon’s first state championship

It was three years in the making, but the girls golf team from Corner Canyon closed out the school’s third year by taking home its first-ever state title when it knocked off Bountiful to win it all at Wasatch Mountain Golf Course in early May.

Emma Winfree and Corner Canyon won the 4A state girls golf title. (Photo by Kurt Johnson)

While most of the attention was focused on the individual state championship battle between three-time winner Naomi Soifua of Provo and Bountiful’s Jobi Einerson, consistency was the key for the Chargers. Their top four golfers were solid over the two days of the event, and as Soifua, who overcame a five-stroke Day 1 deficit to force a one-hole playoff, and Einerson were finishing off their head-to-head, Corner Canyon was celebrating the team title.

The key for the Chargers was in the scores of its No. 4 golfer, as Kali Barlow backed up her opening-round 89 (stroke score) with a Day 2 90. While the schools who finished second, third and fourth overall had to count multiple stroke scores in the high 90s or over 100, that 90 was the highest number to hit the final Corner Canyon score sheet either day.

Jamie Connell was the top player for the Chargers, as she shot 77-75 for a Stableford score of 172 points that was good enough for a fifth-place result individually. Emma Winfree carded a second-day 75 as well after a first-round 81 to finish seventh, while Cristiana Ciasca went 80-77 for eighth.

The Chargers, who celebrated an individual golf championship when Rhett Rasmussen won the 4A title by three strokes in the fall, earned their first state title, and the final margin was 33 points (Stableford scoring system), 652-619 over their closest pursuer, Bountiful.

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