Four Recognized as WGCA All-American Scholars

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. — Four members of the Dartmouth women's golf team were named to the 2019-20 Women's Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) All-American Scholars Team, as announced by the organization today.

A total of 1,401 women's collegiate golfers from all three divisions were recognized with this prestigious honor. Among those named were junior Julianne Strauch, sophomore Kaitlyn Lees, and freshman Samantha Yao and Angela Zhang. Strauch received the honor for the third consecutive year, while Lees is a repeat winner as well.

The criteria for selection to the All-American Scholar Team are some of the most stringent in all of college athletics with the minimum cumulative grade point average being 3.50 for inclusion.

Lees, Yao and Zhang each competed in all four of the tournaments that Dartmouth participated in this past season before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the remaining events, while Strauch played in three of the four.

An All-Ivy League First Team performer as a rookie, Lees produced the lowest stroke average for the Big Green (74.9) for the second straight year over 10 rounds of golf. She finished in the top 20 in three of the four tournaments, placing as high as 11th in the Dartmouth Invitational to start the fall and 12th in the FAU Winter Warmup at the beginning of the spring season. After the season, the native of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, was named the Big Green's team co-MVP as well.

Yao, hailing from Berwyn, Pennsylvania, proved her worth from the start of her collegiate career, finishing third among Big Green players in stroke average (76.5). Her stellar performance at the Princeton Invitational last fall left her in a tie for fifth place out of 80 entrants as she finished at even par over the two rounds, which included a hole-in-one on a 156-yard par-3.

The other freshman, Zhang, was the team's Rookie of the Year and shared MVP honors with Lees, thanks to her 75.1 stroke average. Consistently solid in the first three events, the native of Vancouver, British Columbia, kicked her game up a notch to start the spring, placing third out of 81 entrants at the FAU Winter Warmup with the lowest three-round score ever by a Big Green golfer (216, E).

Strauch was playing some of her best golf last fall with a stroke average at 77 over her first six rounds before some terrible weather sabotaged that mark in her final 18. She enjoyed a strong Dartmouth Invitational with a 6-over 150 to tie for 20th out of 79 golfers, and the native of Advance, North Carolina, will make a run at making it four straight years on this prestigious squad next season.

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