COLUMBIA, S.C. — When you are the number one overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, conference awards will be coming your way and that is the case for the South Carolina women’s golf team.
Sophomore Pauline Roussin-Bouchard is the SEC Player of the Year, while head coach Kalen Anderson is the league’s Coach of the Year award. Three other players were named All-SEC.
Roussin-Bouchard has a program record four tournament wins, including the SEC Championship, where she shattered the SEC Championship scoring record with a 17-under par score. That is also the lowest 54-hole score in South Carolina program history. In each of her wins, Roussin-Bouchard has broken the record for the lowest scores in team history so each victory has been in record-setting fashion. Roussin-Bouchard enters next week’s NCAA Regional with a 69.91 scoring average, the lowest single season total in team history, and that has her as the top-ranked individual in college golf.
The program’s third SEC Player of the Year, Roussin-Bouchard joins Sew Ai Lim (1995) and Kristy McPherson (2003) in that category.
For the second time in her career, Kalen Anderson has been named the SEC Coach of the Year. The program record four tournament wins are the highest total in the SEC and tied for best in the nation. The team holds a 285.45 scoring average, the lowest in program history. Anderson becomes the program’s first two-time SEC Coach of the Year after having won the award in 2015.
Senior Ana Pelaez has earned a spot on the All-SEC First Team, her third All-SEC honor and first time making the first team after earning second team in both 2017 and 2020. This spring, Pelaez has been on fire with top-10 finishes in all five of her tournaments, including back-to-back runner-up finishes and tying for third in her season debut. The senior holds a 70.13 scoring average this season and enters next week’s NCAA Regional as the No. 3 ranked player per the NCAA Golfstat rankings. Pelaez is one of six Gamecocks to earn All-SEC honors in three or more seasons.
Senior Lois Kaye Go is on the All-SEC Second Team after a season which has seen her earn three top-10s, and two top-5 finishes, including a runner-up finish at the Gamecock Intercollegiate, her highest finish as a Gamecock. Go currently holds the second lowest scoring average in program history, 72.72. Go also earned a spot on the SEC Community Service Team and recently was named the winner of the President’s Award at the Gamecock Gala.
Paula Kirner has earned a spot on the SEC All-Freshman Team. Kirner has started six of the seven tournament’s she’s played in with her best finish of the season at the Valspar Augusta Invitation, tying for 17th place, giving her three top-20 finishes on the year. Kirner is the fourth Gamecock to earn All-Freshman honors in the last five seasons.