Dawgs Digest March/April 2017

DAWGS DIGEST

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DAWGS DIGEST

MARCH/APRIL 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IN THIS ISSUE From the Athletic Director’s Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Plum’s Pursuit: Chasing history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Shot: Indelible images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

SPRING SPORTS PREVIEW 10 Questions With ... Baseball’s Jordan Jones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Shortstop Ali Aguilar has unfinished business in 2017. . . . . . . 10 Senior Ali Aguilar has the Huskies set on returning to the Women’s College World Series in 2017. Our Olympic sports preview STARTS ON PAGE 9.

Olympic training prepped UW rowers for strong spring. . . . . . . . 16 Defending NCAA champs take to the course. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

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DAWGS DIGEST VOLUME 10 / ISSUE 5 / MARCH/APRIL 2017

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Dawgs Digest is published six times a year

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FROM THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR’S DESK

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usky Athletics has been on a remarkable run of success this year: after one of the most exciting fall seasons in Husky history, highlighted by a ninth-place Director’s Cup finish, participation in our first-ever College Football Playoff semi-final game, an Elite Eight appearance by our volleyball team, and a Sweet Sixteen appearance by men’s soccer, we moved straight into a thrilling winter season with dominating performances by many of our teams.

The dynamic nature of collegiate athletics leaves little time for introspection and reflection, but I want to take a moment to acknowledge the magnitude of what has been accomplished here in the past six months.

Our outstanding athletic results were enhanced by a record-breaking fall quarter in the classroom: 18 of our 22 teams had a team grade-point average of 3.0 or better! Seven student-athletes achieved a perfect 4.0 for the quarter, and 125 student-athletes were named to the University’s Dean’s List.

This exceptional academic performance is a tribute not only to the hard work of our student-athletes, but also to the support of their coaches, academic support staff and faculty.

Additionally, the leadership exhibited by our student-athletes in competition and in the classroom was carried into the greater community as our students and teams continued to seek opportunities for public service. A shining example of commitment, success, and leadership is Kelsey Plum, the newly crowned NCAA all-time leader in scoring for women’s basketball. Kelsey is a dedicated student with a strong academic record who has been named to the Dean’s List while here at

Jennifer Cohen

UW. Her devotion to practice, taking thousands and thousands of shots in Alaska Airlines Arena, is unparalleled. And she has quietly engaged in service learning projects in the Seattle community, working with disadvantaged young school children far away from the limelight of cameras, reporters, and interviews. Kelsey truly exemplifies what it means to be a Husky.

As the winter season wraps up with championship competition, we are looking to our spring teams with confident optimism, with the certainty that the momentum of this year will not slow. Please be sure to get out to a game! GO DAWGS!

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PLUM’S

PURSUIT

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BY CARTER HENDERSON

here were you at 3:44 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017?

For nearly 7,000 Husky fans in attendance at UW women’s basketball’s 84-77 win over Utah in Alaska Airlines Arena, the answer is one they will enjoy telling friends and family for years: witnessing history.

While many Washington fans believed that senior guard Kelsey Plum would eventually break the NCAA’s all-time scoring record, the fashion in which she did so came as a surprise to nearly everyone, including head coach Mike Neighbors. Plum entered the game — Senior Night at Hec Edmundson Pavilion — needing 54 points to break Jackie Stiles’ record. Her season average was 31 points per game; her previous single-game high was 45 points. Heck, the NCAA’s single-game scoring record is 60 points — to have said it was unlikely for Plum to rack up 54 during her final regular-season game at home would have been an understatement akin to saying that her jumper is “okay.”

Perhaps the single-largest factor contributing to Plum’s ability to break the record in front of a home crowd was a play that she had nothing to do with. Less than two minutes into the fourth quarter, Huskies’ senior center Chantel Osahor was charged with a reach-in foul. The foul was her fifth, meaning two things: Osahor had fouled out, and the Huskies now needed every point they could get from Plum, the program’s leading scorer. Plum, who had 22 points at halftime, was asked to take over as only she can do.

“Kelsey did, tonight, exactly what she’s done for us since she got on campus: whatever is needed,” Neighbors said after the game.

Now locked in the zone, Plum began scoring in bunches, and buzz built steadily, both in the arena and from thousands following online and watching the telecast. As Plum poured in point after point, it became clear that she would break history.

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With 4:05 remaining, Plum drove left off a high-ball screen from teammate Katie Collier; a pick-androll set that Collier and Plum have executed hundreds of times since they arrived together on Montlake in 2012. Driving off the screen, Plum read the defender’s reaction, which left her just enough space to launch a left-handed floater from the middle of the lane. The shot fell gracefully through the net, making Plum the new owner of the NCAA’s all-time scoring record, and sending the fans packing Alaska Airlines Arena into a frenzy.

Plum’s 57-point, record-breaking performance became the talk of the country, with everyone from state officials, to professional athletes and many in between weighing in with congratulations.

While the significance of the moment was not lost on her, Plum was quick to share thanks with those around her.

“This is an individual record but it’s broken by a village of people. It’s broken by every teammate that I’ve ever had, every coach that I’ve ever played for, every trainer, doctor, my parents, my sisters, my brother,” Plum said. “It’s this University. It’s the support I’ve been given, and I’m very grateful.”

A full microsite,

GoHuskies.com/PlumsPursuit, features video, audio, infographics and many other elements celebrating the record, and Dawgs Digest wanted to provide a sampling of the enormous local and national reaction to #PlumsPursuit. … a sampling of reactions and images from one of the most memorable moments on Montlake.

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10 QUESTIONS WITH...

FRESHMAN PITCHER JORDAN JONES Your brother, Taylor, played at Gonzaga and was recently drafted by Houston. What was it like growing up together?

Talk about the dynamic of this group, with the newcomers and returners.

“It was special. A lot of people ask me if I felt like I was in the shadow of my brother growing up, but I always felt the total opposite. I absolutely love my brother. I love it when he’s doing well. He’s paved such a good path and done so well that I just want to be close to how well he’s done.”

“The returners took us in from day one. They showed us the way they do it here and we’ve just followed in their path. We’re just picking their brains every moment we can get — asking questions, watching their bullpens, watching their flat grounds when they throw it to the pad. I’m a pretty quiet type of dude, so I just kind of sit back and watch everything they do and see what I can learn from them.”

Which one of your teammates is the toughest to face?

“So far, the one who has been toughest is Kyle London. He’s a scrappy hitter.

He can hit for power or for base hits. He can hit just about every pitch, every location and it is always a good battle with him. I always try to get crafty and change things a little differently when facing him. I’ve only gotten him out once, I think, out of four or five at-bats.”

You were 28-2 over four years during high school. What made you such a good pitcher at that level?

“I was able to go after guys. By the time my senior year rolled around, I was able to strike a lot of guys out, but I was lucky to have a really solid defense all four years at Kentwood, so I knew that I could could try keep my pitch count low by allowing them to get themselves out by hitting it to my defense.”

You lost two games.

Do you remember the two losses more than the wins?

“Oh yeah, for sure. My first loss was my freshman year in the State quarterfinals, to South Kitsap. That was a 1-0 loss and that was a killer of a loss, just being so close to the State Championship.

Then the second loss was the next year, my sophomore year, to Thomas Jefferson High School. That was a 4-1 loss, I think. I struggled with location and they got the best of me.”

Describe yourself as a pitcher.

“I control the zone. I love hitting spots, whether it’s my fastball, changeup or curveball. I have confidence to throw any of the pitches in any count, any location. And just tricking hitters a little bit with my motion — it’s somewhat of a new thing that I’ve started, changing my motion by either speeding up or slowing down.

It’s something different.”

Have you talked about your role with the team with the coaches or what they expect from you?

“At our closing-out meetings after fall it was summed up as possibly being the Sunday starter or a key bullpen guy. Any role that they give me, I’m taking full advantage of it and just trying to be the best I can possibly be and get us to Omaha.”

As a local guy, do you show your teammates around or do you feel like an outsider in your own town still?

“I’m kind of an outsider in my own town because I haven’t really toured or looked around downtown Seattle a whole lot. With Tommy (Costello), we were driving around downtown and going past Pike Place, and that was the first time I’d ever seen Pike Place in person. It’s weird, because they are always asking me about some of these locations in downtown and I don’t know what they are or I haven’t been there.”

Being from Kentwood, you played Federal Way. What’s Huskies IF/OF Christian Jones like?

“He’s a great dude, always a competitor. We always go back and forth bickering on not just baseball, but a lot about basketball, because he had back-to-back state titles. Last year, Kentwood played Federal Way in the State Championship, so we would always go back and forth on that. But every time we’ve faced off against each other it’s always been a battle. This last year when I faced him, he had three at-bats and every at-bat was a 3-2 count. It was a good time.”

You want to get into broadcasting or journalism. What’s the story behind that?

“It’s something that’s always interested me. The hours where they just repeat the same SportsCenter over and over, I’ll watch the same thing three times in a row. It’s just something that drives me. I love talking about sports.

Baseball, basketball, football, I love it all and wish one day I could be doing that.”

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ONE MORE TIME

AR UND ALI AGUILAR,

For senior a national championship would be “everything”

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ith two outs in the top of the 10th, runner on third, in a tie ball game against No. 2 Auburn, senior Ali Aguilar stepped up to the plate and did what she does best. Dropping a single into left field to score Kirstyn Thomas from third, Aguilar drove in what would be the winning run in the Huskies’ 2-1 season opening victory over the 2016 World Series runner-up.

While she is no stranger to executing in pressure situations, this one held a little extra weight for Aguilar, who will be suiting up for the final time in purple and gold this season.

“I felt a little bit of pressure, but I just trusted everything that I had done to prepare and it happened to drop through. I met with Coach (Heather) Tarr right before I went up to bat and she said whatever is going to happen has already happened. You can’t control that part, so just go up there and do what you do,” recalled the veteran infielder from Orangevale, Calif.

While this was just one at bat for Aguilar, she is approaching her final season in similar fashion, trusting the preparation and playing pitch-to-pitch.

Aguilar has already collected a host of superlatives heading into her senior season, but there is one thing missing from her resume, and it has nothing to do with personal accolades.

“We have not been to a World Series while I have been at the University of Washington. We have gotten really close,” says Aguilar. “Getting to the World Series

BY MAUREEN DONOVAN and then winning a National Championship would be everything.”

The two-time All-Pac-12 honoree, top-25 finalist for 2016 USA Softball Player of the Year, and 2016 NFCA All-American Second Team member proved to be one of the most talented hitters in the nation last season. She led the Huskies with 20 multi-hit games and 18 multi-RBI games. Of those included four games where she collected five or more RBI. Despite being one of the most individually decorated players in Husky history with plenty of opportunity to add more to the list this season, Aguilar’s focus lies more in the team aspect of the game, which is not surprising given her humble demeanor.

“Recognizing the whole team effort, competing with my teammates, and helping the young ones and all my other teammates grow as players to ultimately help the team win is my focus,” Aguilar says. “It is rewarding to get those awards and recognitions, but at the same time, there is something so special about working together as a team towards a common goal.”

Aguilar, a potent threat at the plate, has not always been a power hitter. Out of high school, she was considered a slap hitter with the ability to hit away, but Coach Tarr saw the potential in her swing, which has

led her to become one of the best hitters to ever suit up in purple and gold.

“I definitely did not hit home runs all the time in high school. I think that is what Coach Tarr would say she recruited me as, more of a fast slapper,” Aguilar says. “Then, she wanted me to get more comfortable with my swing. She did not want me to rely on slapping all the time so I started doing that and I began hitting the ball farther and farther, so then I just kept hitting.

They didn’t really want me to slap anymore because I could get doubles instead of singles.”

As an integral part of the lineup since her freshman year, Aguilar’s swing is not the only thing that has developed since she first arrived on campus.

“Freshman year, I felt like I was just surviving. I was in the lineup almost every game, but I felt like I was just trying to get by. I grew sophomore and junior year just by learning new things about how to face different pitching, playing defense, and knowing the plays. Now I feel like I am in control of the experience,” says Aguilar, who was named to the 2014 Pac-12 All-Freshman team in her first season as a Husky.

“At shortstop, you have to be the leader on the field and I think I have grown into a more confident leadership role throughout my career,” Aguilar adds. “I am still not a loud person. I am kind of quiet so I lead more by

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Originally recruited as a slap hitter, Aguilar has turned into one of the Huskies’ top sluggers, earning second-team All-America honors in 2016.

example, but I have learned to be more confident and knowledgeable of the game at the next level. “ Aguilar spent this past summer playing for the USA Women’s National Elite Team, and made an impact for Team USA when she was called up during the 2016 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Women’s World Softball Championship in July. She went 2-for-3 and drove in the game’s first run as Team USA jumped out to a 4-0 lead and downed Japan, 7-3, in the gold-medal game. That experience helped Aguilar take her game to the next level heading into her senior season.

“It helped me to ignite my competitiveness and the deep-down drive to succeed, because at Washington I have had the shortstop position the past three years, but there I had to compete against other people again,” Aguilar says. “It was also really cool to play with some of the best players that I used to watch on TV when I was in middle school and high school.”

In January, Aguilar was named to the 2017 USA Softball Women’s National Team along with teammate Sis Bates, who was named to the Junior Women’s National Team.

“I was nervous at first, but I was trying not to be too high or too low about it, which is just my personality anyways. Aguilar says in regards to her reaction when she found out she made the 2017 Team USA roster. “But I was excited for sure.”

“We are so proud of her for officially making the women’s team this year,” says head coach Heather Tarr. “This really shows her growth and maturity. There’s so much talent on that team and anybody at the tryout could have been selected. Her drive is probably what set her apart from the others and what really impressed the coaches. It definitely impresses us every single day.”

The USA Women’s National Team is set to compete in the World Cup of Softball XII, July 4-9 in Oklahoma City, Okla. While excited to represent the red, white, and blue in Oklahoma City, Aguilar and the Huskies have their sights set on the “Softball Capital of the World” for a different reason, the Women’s College World Series in June.

The Huskies, who also knocked off defending national champions Oklahoma in their first weekend of play, are off to a good start.

“Right now we just want to prove ourselves in the preseason,” Aguilar says.

“Most importantly, we want to win the Pac-12 and then we want to get a top-eight seed so we can host Regionals and Super Regionals to ultimately go to the World Series and play for a National Championship.”

To get there, the Huskies will rely on the leadership of their two lone seniors, Aguilar and Casey Stangel.

“To have an unbreakable team, a unified team, is the goal, and that is what me and Casey Stangel have been trying to do,” Aguilar says. “Casey has done a really good job of bringing us together, having team meetings and staying on top of our team unity to keep us together and be able to compete and work hard.”

Aguilar and the Huskies have their work cut out for them, but the vision is clear and they aim to leave no doubt along the way, which is the team’s motto this season.

“We can compete and hang in there with the best, if not be there right alongside them,” Aguilar says.

Graduating in June with a degree in sociology and communications, Aguilar does not have a clear picture of what the future will look like just yet, but she has a hard time imagining her life without softball in it.

Regardless, Aguilar attributes her success to this point on and off of the field to the immeasurable impact that the Husky softball program and coaching staff has had on her throughout her career.

“It has honestly been life-changing,” she says. “Just the way I have developed as a person and a player. If I would not have come here, then I would not have been able to develop the way I have softball-wise and in all other aspects of my life.

“We are constantly pushed to be great people and do the right thing,” she adds.

“All eyes are on you, so if you slip up, you are going to be held accountable for it. That is the way I was raised, but it was taken to a whole other level when I got here. I owe so much to this program for who I have become over the past four years.”

However, it won’t be until the final out of the season is in the books that Aguilar will be able to fully reflect on her career and come to terms with the fact that it is nearing an end.

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ONE MORE TIME

AROUND

There’s just one thing left that Aguilar hasn’t achieved in her time at UW, and it’s her primary goal this season: leading the Huskies back to the Women’s College World Series.

Continued from page 12 “Sometimes, I think about it here and there,” she says. “But honestly, the season goes by so fast and there are so many games that if you try to think about it ending you are going to miss the entire thing.”

For now, Aguilar is taking it pitch-by-pitch and savoring each step of the way with her teammates, but there is no question that a trip to the Women’s College World Series and a chance to play for a national championship would be the icing on the cake to an already phenomenal career.

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Back In The Boat

After a “gap year” of sorts to compete for Olympic berths, two Husky rowers are ready to get back to business on Montlake Both Sim (left) and Davison (right) say it was a tough decision to leave UW last year to train for the Olympic Games, but that the experience has made them stronger rowers entering the 2017 season.

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he 2015 calendar was about to flip to September. Another academic year at the University of Washington and a return to Husky rowing were beckoning Stuart Sim … even though he was 8,200 miles away, at home in Melbourne, Australia.

Sim was ready to begin that long trek back to Seattle … … until he wasn’t.

“Australia actually didn’t qualify for the men’s eight until about 24 hours before I was meant to get on that plane,” he says. “I e-mailed coach (Michael) Callahan, and said, ‘Hey Coach – we’ve had this chat about me wanting to pursue the Olympics. And I think I’m going to go for it.’

“And I pretty much didn’t pack my suitcase, and I let the flight go out.”

Ben Davison’s journey to his own Olympic decision was every bit as challenging as Sim’s: Stay on track with arguably the highest-profile collegiate rowing program

BY MARK MOSCHETTI FOR DAWGS DIGEST in the United States? Or, take a shot at rowing for the United States in the Rio Olympic Games?

“It was a lot to consider,” Davison says. “The simple thing would have been to come back and go to school.

But when weighing the option of what could go wrong as opposed to what I could gain from it, it was a no-brainer.

“I felt I was letting the team down a bit and letting Coach Callahan down,” he adds. “But it’s been sort of a dream for a while now, and regardless of the result, the idea would be that at least I would be able to say that I tried.”

For the record, no one in the Conibear Shellhouse was feeling let down.

“We want to support everyone’s dream,” Callahan

says. “We were all watching on the computer and cheering for them.”

The waters wouldn’t always be smooth in the months ahead. But now, Sim and Davison were fully committed to navigating them.

Adding Value – And Earning The Cox’s Seat

For Stuart Sim, working his way into a potential Olympic boat didn’t involve as much work as he would have liked.

The 24-year-old is a coxswain, with an impressive resume at Washington.

But Australia’s Olympic selections – even for an

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eight – are done in coxless pairs.

“From September through February I coxed five times,” says Sim, who was trying to beat out a 10-year national-team veteran. “It’s a lot of sitting in a launch and figuring out how to get selected.”

Sim – a third-generation cox in his family – said the biggest part of that is convincing those making the selections how he could add value to the team.

“That might be bringing positive energy, that might be listening to the coach and rephrasing what the coach is trying to say to the guys – it might be about connecting two dots,” he says.

On Feb. 16 of last year, Sim learned that he had connected the right dots. The top-10 pairs in a final race became Australia’s team. From that, the various boats were formed. He was named the coxswain of the 8.

That crew trained together and headed to Lucerne, Switzerland, for an Olympic qualifying regatta on May 24. Needing a top-two finish, the Aussies placed fourth behind the U.S, Poland and Italy.

“We had a very young group of guys – maybe five who were 23, 24, and five who were in their first open senior-level regatta,” he says. “The fact that we were competitive for the first 1,500 meters (of 2,000) was a really good sign. We probably just didn’t have the full crew experience to be able to finish like we had hoped.”

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Oh, So Close

As Ben Davison moved toward pursuing his Olympic dream, he wasn’t going in blind.

But he was taking a leap of faith.

“When I initially decided to take the offer, I didn’t know what boat I was going to do,” says the 20-year-old Davison, a native of England who has dual citizenship (England and the U.S.). “There was this place in Vermont where a lot of the top guys were training, so I went there.

“It seemed to be the consensus that everyone wanted to do the quad, so we did a quad selection. I ended up making the top four, so we went with that quad.”

At an April 2016 regatta in Sarasota, Fla. – just 130 miles south of Inverness, which Davison now calls home – that quad won the right to represent America in the same Lucerne qualifying competition at which Sim was competing with the Australian eight.

With only the top-two boats qualifying for Rio, the U.S. wound up fourth behind Russia, Canada and New Zealand. But, just two months later, the Russians were disqualified for doping, so third-place New Zealand – which finished just six-tenths of a second in front of the Americans – was awarded the second and final qualifying berth.

Davison readily admits, “That was a bit hard to swallow.”

“We were going hard in the last 500,” he says. “I’m not going to make excuses, but if there was a qualifying spot for the Olympics (that close), could we have gone six-tenths faster? That’s something we’ll ask ourselves for the rest of our lives.

“It was a tough experience,” he adds. “But we learned a lot from it.”

Back In Montlake Neither Sim nor Davison has closed the door on trying for the 2020 Tokyo Games.

But with the spring approaching, they’re delighted to be back at Washington – and Callahan is delighted to have them back.

“When they weren’t here, we were missing them,” he says. “But when they came back, Ben’s work ethic and attention to rowing and passion for rowing are unequaled. And Stu, in terms of leadership in the boathouse, he’s the main guy.”

Added Davison, “From what I was having last year with a small (U.S.) team, getting back with a big (UW) team was incredible. Even when everyone is struggling after a long week, people are still yelling encouragement, still being loud, and still wanting to go fast.”

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RELOADED

Repeat? Washington’s defending NCAA champion WOMEN’S GOLF TEAM is focused only on improving, day by day.

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n college sports, there’s no higher goal than winning a national championship. It’s what every high-school senior who signs a letter-of-intent dreams about, what every coach aspires to, what every team works so hard throughout the year to achieve. Teams might work their way up the ladder from individual wins, to conference titles, to regional titles, always aspiring to the next goal on the horizon. When you win the national title, you’ve finally achieved the ultimate goal – there’s nothing greater you can do.

Which is exactly what had Husky women’s golf coach Mary Lou Mulflur so worried this past summer.

“Probably, honestly, that’s the thing I’ve fretted over most this summer,” says Mulflur, whose Huskies made a Cinderella run of sorts to golf’s NCAA Championship last spring. “All of these sophomores are now defending champions. So how do you handle that?”

It’s no easy question. College and even pro sports are littered with tales of teams and individuals who tasted their sport’s greatest glory, only to waver aimlessly the following season. Once you’ve climbed the mountain, once you’ve satisfied that driving hunger – how do you go about making yourself hungry to put in all that grueling day-today work again?

While you’d love to bring back the same unit that proved it could win the title once, when it comes to recapturing that hunger, it can actually help to have some new faces. Gone is senior Ying Luo, whose hole-out from 45 yards on the 18th hole clinched one of the Huskies three points in its 3-2 NCAA Championship win over Stanford.

Gone, too, is senior Charlotte Thomas, whose steady leadership meant so much to a team that sported five freshmen in its title-winning season. In fact, just three of the seven Husky women who held the trophy aloft that day last June are back with the team in 2017, meaning that for

BY BRIAN BEAKY Editor, Dawgs Digest most of the golfers on the team, their hunger is as yet unsatisfied.

“The biggest challenge we’ve faced is, ‘Are we OK with being the reigning national champion?’ ” Mulflur says.

“That was hard. We’ve gotten through that.”

The Huskies will be led on the course in 2017, as they were in 2016, by sophomore Julianne Alvarez. The bespectacled Kiwi grew up playing alongside LPGA mega-star Lydia Ko, twice winning New Zealand’s Amateur Championship while honing her competitive edge. That paid off in Eugene last spring, where Alvarez found herself at the center of the collegiate women’s golf world, all of America’s eyes on her as she and Stanford’s Lauren Kim went two extra holes in the decisive match. With her usually reliable driver finding trouble off the tee, Alvarez pulled off a pair of remarkable approach shots to save par and, ultimately, clinch the title for UW. This year, she’s being looked to not just as a leader on the course, but in the locker room as well. Just a sophomore, she’s already one of Washington’s most experienced players. Joining Alvarez among the returners are Ingraham High School grad Sarah Rhee and fellow Kiwi Wenyung Keh. Rhee provided what was, at the time, the most dramatic moment in Husky women’s golf history in the NCAA semifinal, holing out from a bunker to clinch UW’s upset of top-seeded UCLA and send the Huskies into the final match against Stanford. Of course, that honor lasted merely 24 hours, before Luo’s own hole-out in the finals, and Alvarez’s clinching putt, took center stage. No worries – Rhee’s focused more on results than recognition, evidenced by her strong performance throughout the Huskies’ fall season,

where she placed among the team’s top-three scorers at each event.

Keh, like Alvarez, went undefeated in three rounds of match play at the NCAA Championships, then teamed up with her country-mate this summer to compete for New Zealand at the World Amateur Team Championships. She was arguably the Huskies’ top performer in the fall, earning two top-10 finishes and winning both of her matches in the prestigious East Lake Cup. That trio is joined by three freshmen – including Japan’s Karen Miyamoto, Ellen Takada (Irvine, Calif.) and Eunwon Park (Tenafly, N.J.), along with junior transfer Christina Wang (Guangdong, China).

Miyamoto, a two-time winner on the American Junior Golf Association tour, and the 2015-16 North America Junior Amateur Champion, has gotten off to a fast start after joining the team in January, placing 10th overall – and tops on team – in just her second official event, the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Challenge.

“Karen is just such a solid player out there on the course and on top of that, she’s a great kid,” Mulflur says.

Takada, Park and Wang have all placed in Washington’s top-five throughout the early part of 2016-17 as well, giving Mulflur confidence that this young unit is starting to come together.

Of course, now that the bar has been set, fans only want to know the answer to one question – will they be good enough to recapture the magic of last year’s team and make another dramatic NCAA Championship run?

Mulflur says the presence of so many newcomers takes the pressure off of the entire lineup.

“We’re not defending anything,” she says. “We don’t have to repeat. This is a new team, a clean slate.”

In other words, they’re hungry again – and for Husky fans, that’s an exciting prospect.

DAWGS DIGEST

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DAWGS DIGEST

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STANDING ROOM ONLY

Senior Chantel Osahor (Phoenix, Ariz.), takes the tip for the Huskies against Pac-12 rival Stanford in Alaska Airlines Arena on Jan. 29. The top-10 matchup drew a standing-room only crowd, marking the largest crowd ever to watch a UW women’s basketball game in Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

Photographs by RED BOX PICTURES

To purchase Husky Athletics photography, visit www.HUSKIESPHOTOSTORE.com

We’re with the Dawgs.