Troy girls golf coach Jerry Cowgill lost three seniors to graduation last spring, including Alison Lillie, whom he described as the best player to ever tee it up for the Warriors.
Cowgill was ready “to take a step back” this season. How could Troy be competitive with half of its starting lineup in college?
Instead of settling for being a young team in rebuilding mode, Cowgill and his six dedicated, hard-working golfers did what no other team had done before at the school.
The Warriors’ historic run started Sept. 11 when they posted the program’s lowest nine-hole score on a par-36 course, beating Yorba Linda, 188-193, at Black Gold Golf Club. And it ended with the school’s first CIF-SS golf championship when Troy edged Palm Desert by one stroke in the Eastern Team Regional.
“They are driven to get better,” said Cowgill, the Register’s Girls Golf Coach of the Year. “There is a special chemistry. I don’t even have to tell them we are playing so-and-so course in CIF, and it would be a good idea if we had a practice round. They go on their day off together and do it.”
Related:
2013 All-County girls golf team
2013 girls golfer of the year: Brooke Graebe, Yorba Linda
From the start, this group showed a lot of potential. The Warriors won the opening Rosary Royal Shotgun for the second year in a row.
Troy finished in the top five of its next three tournaments, placing second in the Walnut Tournament and third in the Long Beach Wilson Tournament.
Troy finished with a 198.9 nine-hole scoring average. Anything under 200 puts a team among the elite in the Southern Section.
Cowgill received a lot of help from his wife, Lynn Cowgill, who was often in charge of the team at practices and matches. In some ways, Jerry said, the girls respond better to Lynn, who likes to give hugs and cry with them after a bad day on the course.
“This should be a co-coach of the year award,” he said. “We share a lot on this team.”
