Female Athlete of the Year
Elisa Pierre Golden Valley High Senior
Two months after Elisa Pierre graduated from Golden Valley High and nearly 10 months after completing her final Foothill League golf round, she still can’t believe her high school career is over.
Pierre said she still remembers her final day at TPC Valencia on Oct. 14, 2015.
“I thought, ‘This is my last high school match. It went by so fast,’” Pierre said. “That whole day and before me and my friends, who were also graduating, were all talking about it being our last league match.
“I remember I felt a little dizzy on the last putt.”
Pierre might have been dazed for a second, but on that final putt in October she wrapped up a dazzling Foothill League career.
It not only sealed par on the 18th hole at TPC, but it secured her third straight Player of the Year award — the first Foothill League golfer to do so — with a cumulative league score of 171 (minus throw out).
That same day her 5-under 103 eclipsed a five-year record at TPC and captured her third consecutive Newhall Land Cup.
“This year was really, really special to me,” Pierre said. “To be with my teammates in my senior year, we’re all so close, and all of us just came together. We just tried to make the most of it and have a lot of
fun while working hard. We bonded so well and did the best we could.”
But the best Pierre could do was still on the horizon.
Pierre and Golden Valley both earned automatic postseason bids for the fourth straight year.
And although the Grizzlies didn’t advance past the first round of the CIF team playoffs, Pierre shot a 1-over 72 at the WSCGA Southern California Golf Championship to advance to the CIF State finals for the second time in her four years, solidifying her high school career as one of the best in Santa Clarita Valley history.
At state she finished tied for 18th and is the only SCV female golfer to reach the state finals twice.
Not only did Pierre dominate her senior year, and all four years as a Grizzly, she ran away in voting for the
2015-16 Signal Sports Female Athlete of the Year.
Pierre swept all four firstplace ballots, giving her a perfect score of 20 points and the first Signal top-female award for a golfer.
“Elisa is the best female golfer to walk the fairway in the Foothill League,” said Golden Valley head coach Tony Moskal. “There are some tremendous athletes (in the SCV), but no one has dominated a league for as long as Elisa has. I challenge anyone to find someone who has done more.
“Golf isn’t one of those sports that you can take six months off … You have to work every day and in golf no two shots are the same, no two courses are the same.”
Her consistency and “ice veins,” as Moskal says, has helped the Indiana University-bound Pierre over the course of her career as a Grizzly. Before Pierre, there had been only one female from the SCV to advance to a state championship.
The first time Pierre was there, she finished tied for eighth in her sophomore year.
“This valley has been so supportive, (and winning the award is) really special and a huge honor,” Pierre said. “I’m thrilled and hope when I leave here I can make the SCV proud, because this community really helped build me as a person.”