MORE FAIRWAY FANFARE MIGHT SOON FOLLOW.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

Two trophies in the case for locals and possibly more on the way.

USC reigns as NCAA women's team golf champion after a 15-stroke victory last week in West Lafayette, Ind., where the Trojans' Mikaela Parmlid won the individual title in a playoff.

UCLA bids for the men's championship this week in competition that started Tuesday and concludes Friday in Stillwater, Okla., where the second-ranked Bruins - the Pacific-10 Conference champions and winners of the West Regional - were four shots off the lead after the first round.

USC's Nico Bollini, who won the SCGA Amateur last summer, led area entries in men's individual scoring at the par-72, 7,095-yard Karsten Creek course after the first round and was within three shots of the lead.

For the USC women, winning their school's inaugural team title was a matter of playing their best at the most-important time of the season.

``We peaked at the right time and played our hearts out the last seven rounds,'' said seventh-year USC coach Andrea Gaston, whose team also won the West Regional title.

Parmlid, who joins current LPGA player Jennifer Rosales as the only USC women to win the NCAA individual title, combined with Irene Cho, Anna Rawson, reigning U.S. Women's Amateur champion Becky Lucidi and Tanya Derga to give USC its first NCAA team golf title for men or women.

Pepperdine finished second and UCLA fifth in the 72-hole competition at Purdue's Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex.

--How low can you go? The growing boom of youth golf reached the Southern Section individual championship Tuesday, when it took par or better to make the cut for next week's season-ending CIF/SCGA championship at SCGA Golf Course in Murrieta.

Garrett Sapp, a junior at Gahr High of Cerritos, won the section title with a 66 at par-72 Canyon Country Club in Palm Springs, needing the second- best score in section-final history to edge runner-up Joe Lopez of Ayala of Chino Hills by a stroke.

Four others also shot in the 60s, and 18 of the 22 CIF/SCGA qualifiers broke par on a day area golfers Brandon Christianson of Valencia (68), Colin Wilcox of Camarillo (69) and Brett Kanda of Flintridge Prep of La Canada (71) all advanced.

``It's getting there,'' one veteran section official said of the depth of low scores, then corrected himself: ``It's not getting there - it's here.''

Westlake coach Dave Costley, making an 11th consecutive postseason appearance - this time with junior Brett Perry - said scores seem to be getting lower every year.

``In our divisional, the cut was two shots lower than last year,'' he said.

Of this year's 12 area qualifiers for the section final, nine were juniors or sophomores.

``I couldn't remember anyone as young as J.T. Kohut when he started with us,'' Costley said of the four-year Westlake star, who was a freshman starter on Westlake's 1996 CIF/SCGA title team.

--Names in the game: Area PGA Tour professionals David Berganio Jr. and Duffy Waldorf, four-time SCGA Amateur champion Craig Steinberg and former Westlake High star Kohut will be in the field for Monday's 36-hole U.S. Open Sectional qualifying tournament at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. ...

Pepperdine senior and Academic All-American Katherine Hull, who combined an NCAA-leading 71.88 women's scoring average with a 3.4 grade-point average this year, has been awarded the Dinah Shore Trophy. The award, presented annually by the LPGA Foundation, is based on achievement in academics, leadership, community service and golf. ... Joe Chally and Chad Wensel, juniors at The Master's College, were named to the all-tournament team at last week's NAIA national championship after leading the Mustangs to a third-place finish. ...

Anthony Kim, the former Campbell Hall of North Hollywood standout who shot 66 to win the Southern Section individual title for La Quinta in 2001, was on hand to root for longtime junior golf rival Brandon Christianson on Tuesday in the Southern Section final. Kim, who finished second Monday in the AJGA Thunderbird International Junior in Phoenix, will play for Oklahoma next season. ... John Denny, who came within a stroke of a playoff for the last CIF/SCGA berth in Tuesday's section final, will play for Point Loma Nazarene next season. ... Phil Martinez, who helped Granada Hills win a City Section championship in 2002 and was a starter as a freshman at Cal State Monterey Bay this season, was back in the City finals last week at Griffith Park, helping out as an official. ... Simi Valley's Casey Piper, who lost a Northern Divisional playoff to Marmonte League rival Jeremy Bovill of Agoura for the last berth in the Southern Section final, wound up in the section championship as first alternate when Kevin Larsen of San Marcos of Santa Barbara dropped out.

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