It’s a cause for celebration as the Santa Ynez High school girls golfs program celebrated their recent CIF Central Section Division II championship in October with a ring ceremony Thursday.
“It felt like it wasn't real," junior Addison West said after shooting a team best 87, good enough for third overall. "I had to double check a lot and then once we actually had our hats and our plaque, it really felt like we accomplished a whole lot that year.”
Shooting an overall score of 488, the Pirates won by a wide margin of 14 stroeks at the Lemoore Golf Course with a top five and top finish on the team.
The numbers speak for themselves on the championship day but the level of improvement from the year before speaks volumes.
The team didn’t qualify for CIF last year and had three players on the team that had never even played golf before. But once the golf bug struck, the team would improve 100 strokes from last year’s team to this year.
“Just to see the difference was really refreshing and really helpful to see like we actually can do it and we can do it again, “ West said.
The team improved by 100 strokes from the season before.
“They fell in love with the game and improving," Head Coach Sara Ovadia explained. When you're a beginner golfer, you can really see a lot of improvement if you put the time and effort in.”
After placing third in the Mountain League, the team exceeded expectations and went into the postseason not knowing what to expect, but that wasn’t a bad thing.
“Not qualifying for CIF last year, they didn't have a lot of expectations going into this, and that probably helped us. We'll start to see with the boys this spring and then the girls next fall how they react as defending champions.”
Ovadia also coached the boys golf team to a CIF title last spring making her the second coach in school history to coach both a boys and girls team to a banner. Now with two championships in the past two golf seasons, the golf community in the Santa Ynez Valley is taking notice.
"We hear conversations from some of our members about the team," Director of Golf and Teaching at Alisal River Course Jeff Raymond explained. "It's exciting to talk about the program."
