Girls golf exceeds goals for 2016 season

The girls golf team concluded their season successfully with a 230-232 win against West Torrance High School. Co-captains Emily Goldman (’18) and Sarah Ogata (’20) both scored 39 shots for nine holes, tying for the lowest score of the season. The team ended the season with a 1-5 record in Ocean League, and tied for third under two very established programs in Palos Verdes High School and Torrance High School. Samo was able to win three more matches outside of the Ocean League, two against teams in the Bay League and one that wasn’t a league match. Overall they had 4 wins, which is double their amount of wins from last season.“The team’s performance [this season] has been outstanding, our players are becoming very committed and very motivated to win,” Co-captain Julia Engfer (’17) said. “Our team has grown a lot in the past four years.” Although the team wasn’t able to qualify for CIF, Goldman and Ogata were able to qualify for the CIF Individual 1st Round by maintaining an average score of 47 or less throughout all league matches. Unfortunately, neither of the girls were able to place in the top six and move on to the next round.“Individually, I saw a lot of improvement over the short season,” Ogata said. “I learned a lot of rules for playing with [opponents], as well as pointers for my own swing.”This year, the team has seen vast improvements since their previous season. According to head coach Kevin McKeown, the girls have been constantly working hard. “I think the girls were a lot more competitive this year,” McKeown said. “[They] really started to put in a lot more effort with practice and holding each other accountable and I think with only one senior graduating I really think that next year we are gonna be even more competitive and hopefully can spread this to more girls to recognize just what it means to be an athlete.”Other factors that helped the team improve their performance this year was the addition of Ogata, who became a very valuable member of the team during her first year at Samo. Also, as the only senior, Engfer was able to embrace her role as captain and assist McKeown in organizing the team.“Thanks to the help of my team, I was able to grow so much as a golfer,” Ogata said. “My performance reflected that, [but] the best contribution I gave was trying my best and learning from my mistakes. It’s easy to get caught up with the little losses in the game and i tried to just learn from them and make sure they don’t happen again.”This season the team got off to a bit of a slow start, but was able to improve during the second half of the season. According to McKeown, the girls need to make sure to remain focused during matches. “When we are on a golf course we [have] to only think about that, not think about anything outside, homework, social life, any of that for those two and a half hours you’re on a golf course you’re only thinking about one thing and that’s being an athlete,” McKeown said.This season the team had challenges during away matches since they wouldn’t be as familiar with the course.“Our one weakness of the season [was] away matches,” Goldman said. “New courses can be intimidating because you don’t know how fast the greens are and the other team knows it better than you.”During their off season, the girls golf season is going to continue practicing and working hard in preparation for next season.“There's been a lot of talk about connecting in the spring more [and] finding more opportunities to meet and practice in the spring time [such as] joining outside golf tournaments and I think that keeps your timing down, they really want to get better and I’m excited about seeing that come to fruition,” McKeown said.