In the heart of the National Letter of Intent signing period, the Rocklin High family is recognizing various athletes who will be continuing both their academics and athletics at the collegiate level. This year, two Thunder students are signing their National Letter of Intent to play golf at Division I schools

Senior Camille Wagg signed this past Thursday to UC Irvine. Golfing since the eighth grade, Camille really started thinking about playing golf in college during her sophomore year. With the help of her dad, she looked into various schools, one of them being UCI, and eventually the choice was between an offer from UCI and UC Davis.

Academics and golf were a major component in making her decision and taking the offer from UCI. In the Big West Conference, it is a D1 school, and the golf team is ranked 76th in the nation.

“Irvine is a pretty desirable school,” she said enthusiastically. “It’s in a great location.”

Camille hopes to bring her talent to the team and make it competitive nationally.

“They’re competitive in their conference,” she says of UCI. “Myself and the other [five] girls who are recruited for 2014 [class] and then the girls who are freshman this year at Irvine are really good so I think all of us are going to turn it into a competitive team.”

Camille enjoyed an official visit to UCI, where she got to meet some of the other recruits. She watched a qualifying matches for one of the team’s tournaments, stayed in the dorms, and got to know the team as well as some other UCI students.

Camille is excited to play at the collegiate level, and is confident that she will be able to start as a freshman.

“I think I’ll have a lot of opportunities to travel,” she mentioned.

As for this past year, Camille helped to win the Thunder the SFL league title. Being her fourth year on Varsity, she accomplished all of the goals that she wanted, including scholar athlete, league MVP, and qualify for NorCals.

The team also won sections, the first time that a Rocklin Girls Golf team has done that in RHS history.

Also continuing his golf career at the college level is Blake Abercrombie, who signed to San Diego State University on Thursday.

Growing up on a golf course, Blake has been golfing since he was five years old, which has paid off in his commitment to play at the collegiate level. The recruitment process began for him during sophomore year and picked up heavily this past summer, where he went on visits to various schools.

“I chose San Diego State mostly for the weather,” he said.  “I wanted to be by the beach and schooling was pretty good.”

Blake verbally committed to SDSU in the beginning of August. Ranked 47th in the nation, SDSU is a competitive D1 program in the Mountain West Conference, and Blake hopes to see the team rise in their rankings to the top 25 in the next few years.

“I’m hoping as a freshman to get a starting spot,” he said. “[The coach] said I’m supposed to play.”

Blake has not always just focused on golf. Up until his senior year, he played football for the Thunder.

“I decided just to golf because I wanted to play golf in college and football kind of held me back,” he said. “It was hard to do both.”

Blake also has been on Varsity for 4 years, and is looking forward to the high school season in the spring, where he can golf with friends.

Both golfers started the recruiting process as underclassmen, which shows the hard work both on and off the course that they had to put in to get to the next level. In the end, it pays off, as both are able to continue their golfing careers as student athletes at prestigious universities while getting scholarships.

Not only do they have the chance to be student athletes, but both Camille and Blake agree that this takes away some stress out of their senior year. They only have to apply to one school, and there is no waiting to get their admission letter.

“I’m so relieved, and not stressed out at all,” Camille said. “All I have to do is submit my application and it’s done pretty much.”

Blake agrees with Camille, “It feels so good, really stress free,” he said. “I only have to do one application, which is pretty cool.”

The Rocklin high family is very excited to see what these two are going to accomplish as student athletes over the next four years. Congrats!