USC's Justin Silverstein On WGCA National Coach of the Year Watch List
USC third-year head coach Justin Silverstein, who has guided the Trojans to five wins in 2021 including his second Pac-12 title in addition to this week's trip to the NCAA Championships finals, has been named to the watch list for the 2020-21 Division I Jackie Steinmann WGCA National Coach of the Year Presented by Golf Pride.
The award will be announced after medal play at the upcoming NCAA Championship. The recipient is selected by a prestigious collection of women's collegiate golf coaches who follow criteria that has been established to identify the top head coach for the past year.
The Trojans lost senior Player of the Year candidate Gabriela Ruffels to the pros before the season started but still opened 2021 with three straight wins and posted top 3 finishes in six of eight events.
USC's five wins this year mark the second time Troy has had at least that many under Silverstein, who guided the Trojans to seven wins in his debut season and a trip to the NCAA quarterfinals in 2019.
This year, he and assistant coach Katie Mitchell guided all three Trojan seniors - Allisen Corpuz, Alyaa Abdulghany and Amelia Garvey - to All-Pac-12 first team honors, the most in the conference, each having seasons among the best in program history.
Corpuz has won a career-best two events this season and got off to the best start of any Trojan in 20 years with six straight top 4 finishes. Garvey has four top 10 finishes including a second at the Pac-12 Championships while Abdulghany also has four top 10s and seven inside the top 20.
Junior Malia Nam has a pair of third-place finishes among four top 18 results while freshman Brianna Navarrosa has four top 20s as well.
Abdulghany, Corpuz, Garvey, Nam, Navarrosa and sophomore Alexa Melton all played in the 2021 Augusta National Women's Amateur, the most of any university.
2021 Coach of the Year Watch List
· Kalen Anderson, University of South Carolina
· Amy Bond, Florida State University
· Golda Borst, University of Kentucky
· Dan Brooks, Duke University
· Diana Cantu, University of Maryland
· Jan Dowling, University of Michigan
· Jay Goble, Baylor University
· Kory Henkes, University of Mississippi
· Lindsay Kuhle, University of Denver
· Missy Farr-Kaye, Arizona State University
· Kim Lewellen, Wake Forest University
· Melissa Luellen, Auburn University
· Derek Radley, University of Oregon
· Carol Robertson, Virginia Tech
· Greg Robertson, Oklahoma State University
· Garrett Runion, Louisiana State University
· Justin Silverstein, University of Southern California
· Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll, Michigan State University
· Lisa Strom, Kent State University
· Anne Walker, Stanford University