By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

BURNABY, B.C. (September 25) - A super summer for Julia Alexander-Carew looks like it’s going to be followed by a fabulous fall. The UBC-Okanagan sophomore won her second tournament in three days as she captured the individual title at the True North Classic at Riverway Golf Course in Burnaby. The 54-hole NCAA Division II event was hosted by Simon Fraser University.

The 19-year-old Alexander-Carew finished the tournament at one-under par and won by five shots over UBC’s Grace Bell. It follows her win this past weekend at the Saint Martin’s University Grisham Memorial tourney in DuPont, Wash., which was her first NCAA victory. Now the Oakville, Ont. native has two.

“I had a really good summer season back home and building off of that was kind of the goal going into this season,” she said. “It feels really good. I am happy. I think I had a lot of confidence from last week. It was my first time walking 36 holes in a tournament, so it was nice to be able to grind out that second round yesterday.”

The opening day of the True North Classic was a marathon of sorts for the 11 women’s teams and eight men’s teams who played at Riverway. The first 36 holes were played in cool, rainy conditions that made for a challenging day.

Alexander-Carew took control of the tournament with a second-round four-under 68 and followed that up with a solid even-par 72 to close out the tournament. Her solid start to the fall season follows a summer where she had podium finishes at both the Ontario Women’s Amateur and Ontario Junior Girls championships. “I had a lot of low scores as well, so I am building off of that,” she said.

UBC-Okanagan coach Clay Stothers is delighted to have Alexander-Carew leading his team. “She’s amazing,” Stothers said. “From school, as a human being, as a golfer, she represents her school unbelievably well. She is super competitive and is just an amazing person.

“The other players know that they have someone there to help out on and off the golf course. The team just feeds off that positivity and the morale within the group, the cohesiveness, it is an unbelievably great group to work with and she is obviously the leader.”

UBC-Okanagan finished third in the women’s team competition at Riverway, which turned into a tight two-way battle between the University of B.C. and Simon Fraser University. The UBC team of Bo Brown, Grace Bell, Jessica Ng, Elizabeth Labbe and Sienna Harder prevailed by four shots.

“It was an excellent back and forth battle,” said UBC coach Chris Macdonald. “This is why we play this tournament. We felt like last year we were in our (NAIA) conference and winning by quite a few and the (NCAA) Division I teams, the very top teams, were getting us by quite a few. So the NCAA Division II level is very competitive for us. We wanted to add a few of those types of tournaments to the schedule and we got exactly what we were hoping for. These kinds of experiences help us a lot.”

The men’s competition was won by the host team from Simon Fraser University. The Red Leafs shook off a sluggish start and played the final two rounds 11-under par to win by 15 shots over the University of the Fraser Valley. Western Washington was third.

SFU was led by sophomore Denby Carswell, who finished the event at two-under par and tied for second place, just one shot behind individual winner Ben Mulder of Northwest Nazarene University. Justin Bjornson, Brendan O’Brien, Danny Im and Max Corcoran were the other members of the winning SFU team. “We had a really bad first day as a team, but all the guys were really dialled in the final two rounds,” Carswell said. “We were five or six-under in both round two and three, so it was a good way to finish.”

Carswell, a Burnaby native who has played countless rounds at Riverway, was not delighted with his finish. He made a sloppy bogey on his second to last hole that cost him a chance at the individual title. “I knew I was pretty close,” Carswell said. “I didn’t know I was that close until I finished the round. I probably would have changed my strategy a little bit. I got pretty aggressive coming down the stretch when I didn’t need to.”

New SFU assistant coach Scott Kerr, a former SFU player, was pleased with the way the men bounced back from their slow start. “In the first round I think everyone was knocking off a little bit of rust, we weren’t quite sharp enough mentally to deal with the weather and conditions that were in front of us. But they did a great job after that. As far as their skills are concerned, they are a really capable team and it was great to see them bounce back from a really poor start. They showed their true colours the last couple of rounds.”

Final Scoring

CHIP SHOTS: Hayden Prive of the University of the Fraser Valley and Peter Dionne-Yahr of Western Washington joined Carswell in a tie for second in the men’s individual competition. . .UBC’s Sienna Harder, a freshman making her first collegiate start, aced the par 3 11th hole in the second round.