MURRIETA – Poppy Hills in Northern California is where every local high school golfer who starts postseason play this week dreams of their season ending.
Stage one of that road begins this week with league tournaments which determine individual qualifiers to next Monday’s CIF-SS Central Region Qualifier at Bear Creek Golf Club. Here are the Valley News’ coverage area leagues and how many entries they are allowed to that qualifier:
Ambassador-4, Inland Valley-4, Ivy-6, Mountain Pass-4, Southwestern-9, Sunbelt-4, South Valley-4
Here are some storylines to follow this week from the individual tournaments:
Four players from the Valley News’ coverage area advanced all the way to the CIF State-SCGA regional finals at Brookside in Pasadena a year ago in Temescal Canyon’s Nixon Lauritzen, Great Oak’s Nathan Sampson, Vista Murrieta’s Jaeden Huggins (now at Long Beach State) and Chaparral’s Chayce Frye. Who gets back to this year’s regional final at Los Serranos Country Club on Wednesday, May 24, from that group or goes a round further?
Linfield Christian won the Ambassador League team title with a 7-1 mark (only dropping an away match at Redlands Country Club against Arrowhead Christian immediately after spring break). The Ambassador League only gets four entries into the individual qualifier at Bear Creek next week. How many Lions will make the short trip up the 15 freeway for that tournament?
With nine entries to next Monday’s CIF-SS Central Regional qualifier the Southwestern League has the most spots available. How many different schools will be represented among those nine qualifiers? If you have access to scores from the Inland Valley, Ivy, Sunbelt or South Valley league tournaments please email those results to socaltrekkie@gmail.com or sports@reedermedia.com.
On the team side, the CIF-SS Division 1 championship will be held at Temecula’s Cross Creek Golf Club on May 15. Great Oak and Murrieta Valley are in the field, and both are capable of contending for that title with a good round. Last year the Wolfpack were 6th in Division 1 with a team score of 375 on the same Western Hills layout that Linfield Christian will be playing.
Linfield Christian is in Division 5 which will play their championship event at Western Hills Country Club in Chino also on May 15. With a 14.8 team handicap, the Lions, along with former Ambassador League foe Western Christian and St. Monica Catholic, have the lowest team handicaps according to data submitted to CIF-SS. Mark Moore’s team has not shot higher than a 222 for nine holes and has broken 200 in four of their 13 dual matches. With a good day on the tree-lined layout in Chino, the Lions should be right in the mix. They finished in a 3-way tie for third last year in Division 6 at Jurupa Hills in Riverside.
Derryl Trujillo can be reached at socaltrekkie@gmail.com.
