GOLF NOTEBOOK: CANYONS SURGES AT PERFECT TIME.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

It's all starting to click at the right time for the College of the Canyons men's golf team.

The Cougars won their 12th Western State Conference championship last week and clinched it with a school-record 36-hole total. They won with a season-best 18-hole total, opened the day with one player leading the conference in scoring and wound up with another as MVP in the finale of a 64-2 WSC season.

``I think we're coming together,'' said 20-year coach Gary Peterson, who takes Canyons into the playoffs Monday, when the Cougars open play at 7 a.m. in the 36-hole Southern California regionals at PGA of Southern California Golf Club in Beaumont.

Conference MVP Denny Bae, near season-long WSC scoring leader Lawrence Jarvey, Jonathan Minkoff, Oscar Modin and the suddenly surging tandem of Jacob Curtier and Joey Kroagman will form the starting team in the 36-hole regional.

The recent play of Curtier and Kroagman has Peterson especially optimistic that his team can place in the top three Monday and earn Canyons' 12th berth in the state championship, which will be played May 10 at SCGA Golf Club in Murietta.

Kroagman, who had struggled much of the season, finished 73-71 at Los Serranos for a 2-under-par total of 144, second only to teammate Bae, whose closing 73-66 on the par-74 and par-72 South and North courses left him 7-under 139 and vaulted him into the conference scoring lead that determines MVP recognition.

``It was a big day for Joey,'' Peterson said of the freshman from Hart. ``He's been a throw-out (score) the past four or five rounds (in the best-five-of-six conference scoring format). ``He was playing well at the beginning of the season and then he was injured.''

Curtier, who has been held back by a combination of injury, illness and academics since arriving at Canyons at the start of the Cougars' 2002 state-championship season, shot 73-72-145 at Los Serranos.

Peterson said Curtier's comeback in the past month has been a huge contribution and is one that could loom larger in the postseason.

``Jacob is obviously as talented as any guy we've ever had in this program,'' Peterson said of the long-hitting former Golden League champion from Quartz Hill High, who started this school year with surgery for a dislocated shoulder, battled mumps after the shoulder recovered and has been steadily gaining momentum since regaining full health in the past month.

``He's like a snowball that has started to roll down a mountain and he's getting bigger and bigger,'' said Peterson, whose team similarly picking up steam at the end of the year. ``I don't think I'd like to be in his or their way now.''

Curtier added: ``My ball-striking is coming around and I'm healthy.''

Curtier is a redshirt freshman who shot a season-best 69 two weeks ago.

``The guy has had a string of bad luck,'' said Jarvey, who battled Curtier throughout their final season of high school, when Jarvey played for Highland of Palmdale. ``It's a boost to know we've got a guy who can shoot a low number.''

Jarvey also would be one of those. The redshirt sophomore, who has attracted strong recruiting interest from Cal State Bakersfield, has a season-best of 67, won one WSC tournament, was top three in three others and was within two rounds of realizing his two-year goal of leading the conference in scoring beginning play at Los Serranos.

He wound up shooting 76-75-151 on the only day he has had a round thrown out all season. And he started looking ahead almost immediately.

``I've had a great season,'' said Jarvey, who enters the postseason with a 73.1 scoring average. ``I was looking at that goal (conference MVP) every day, but now I'm looking more to the state championship.''

So is Peterson, who got a 77-69-146 from Minkoff and a 76-74-150 from Modin at Los Serranos, where the Cougars' season-best closing round of 353 gave them a school-record 36-hole total of 723 and a running start at the postseason, where he has won three state titles.

``This team has a goal and a purpose,'' Peterson said after the Cougars' record finish at Los Serranos, where they matched the score shot by undefeated state title favorite Saddleback, which was playing on the same courses in another conference final.

``What they showed me today is that they are not going to lose. They're a team that's going to going to do well at the next level. They have some kind of internal motivation, and it's like, 'Get out of our way.' I think our chances are really good.''

Dave Shelburne, [phone]

dave.shelburne(at)dailynews.com