By Jim Richards
April 21, 2009 will likely go down as one of the great days in the history of South Mountain Community College sports.
Here’s what happened...
For the first time in school history, the SMCC men’s golf team captured the ACCAC regular-season title, ending Scottsdale CC’s 29-year reign as conference champions.
The women’s golf team qualified for the national tournament.
The baseball team defeated No.4-ranked Yavapai College in both games of a thrilling double-header.
The softball team played the role of spoiler and defeated Paradise Valley, keeping PVCC out of the playoff.
Meg Matetich’s women’s golf team picked up the No.2 seed coming out of the NJCAA Region I tournament and will join top-seeded Mesa Community at the LPGA Golf Course in Daytona Beach, Fla. (May 18-21).
Reaching the national tournament is quite an accomplishment for the Lady Cougars, who were unable to field an entire team the previous season.
The Cougars’ men’s team captured their fifth conference invitational out of six this season with a five-stroke victory over second-place Mesa CC at the Chandler-Gilbert-hosted invitational at Toka Sticks.
Scott Spiewak fell only two strokes off the lead for the deep Cougars, who finish the regular season as the NJCAA Div.II No.1-ranked team (golfstat.com) and will head to Phoenix Vistal Golf Club for next week’s all-important NJCAA Region I Div.II final tournament.
The Cougars will be attempting to avenge last season’s disaster at the same tournament. SMCC entered the tournament as the nation’s No.2-ranked teams but failed to come out of the tournament as one of two qualifying teams.
The Cougars have been on fire since, winning 5 of 6 invitationals, losing only the Glendale invitational that ran simultaneously with Alabama’s Goose Pond Spring Fling (March 19-21), forcing coach Jake Harrington to split his team in half with his top players playing in Alabama.
“This will be goal number two,” Harrington said. “We took care of goal number one. This year we’ll have four sophomores from last year’s team that got knocked out.”
Should the Cougars advance out of the region tournament, they’ll head back to the Goose Pond for the national tournament (May 19-22).
The baseball team is also in the postseason, but exactly where has not been decided, yet.
Tuesday’s Cougars’ sweep that left Yavapai (28-7) one game ahead of Central Arizona (28-8) and two games ahead of the Cougars (26-10) with two games to play. (Yavapai will play a suspended game against Coshise if necessary.)
Left-hander Mark Guest fired a seven-inning no-hitter in Game 1 of the Yavapai double-header. In the nightcap, fiery Kevin Hennessey bowled over the catcher after rounding third on Dean Espy’s double for the winning run in the bottom of the ninth to complete the sweep.
Hot-hitting Nico Rosthenhausler, who leads the ACCAC with 42 hits and the Cougars with a .402 batting average, was on base all five times in the nightcap and went 3-for-3 at the plate.
The Cougars will cap the season with a double-header at Cochise while Yavapai will host Phoenix College and Central will travel to Pima for two.
Should the Cougars remain as the third seed, they’ll play a best-of-three series on the road at either Yavapai or Central Arizona.
“Momentum is huge going into the playoffs,” coach Todd Eastin said. “Our team has a lot of confidence now. They believe they can beat anybody.”