Orange Coast Has a Plan for Winning Golf

The time for practice is over for the Orange Coast women’s golf team.

Coach Gordie Fitzel and his team have spent plenty of time on the driving range and the putting green.

Fitzel knows the Pirates are physically as ready as they can be.

So the coach has turned to the mental side of the game in an effort to further prepare his team for the Southern California championship tournament.

Fitzel met with his five-member team in a classroom at OCC Thursday to go over the Menifee Lakes course where the 36-hole tournament will be played Sunday and Monday.

The OCC players saw the layout during a practice round in September and at that time Fitzel asked each player to take a notebook.

The group talked about each hole and where the trouble and safe spots are. OCC goes into the tournament as the Orange Empire Conference champions, just like last year.

But this year the team plans to advance to the state tournament, something the Pirates missed by two strokes last season.

“I told them, ‘Let’s break [Menifee Lakes] down hole by hole,’ ” Fitzel said, “Then we talked about strategy and just staying away from trouble.”

Despite playing the course only once this year, members of the OCC team, especially Robin Shaft, have plenty of Menifee memories.

Shaft took a 12 on a par four during the Southern California tournament last year. She isn’t sure if she hit three or four balls into the lake off the tee.

“I’m not traumatized, but I’m definitely afraid of that hole,” Shaft said. “It’s a short par four so I just plan to hit two five irons and I’ll be on the green.”

Shaft, like her teammates, has shown a great deal of consistency this season. No OCC player finished lower than 13th in a conference tournament as the Pirates went undefeated for the second season in a row.

Sophomore Jennifer Tunzi has the lowest average at 83, followed by Shaft (84), Jenna Quaranta (86), Jan Cheng (87) and Kathy Hille (87).

Further evidence that Shaft’s bad hole is a thing of the past was her performance at the conference championship.

Playing on the north course at Los Serranos in Chino Hills, she shot a second-round 83 on the par-74 layout and Tunzi shot 85 to help OCC rally for a three-shot victory over Saddleback, which will join Mt. San Antonio and Long Beach in the regional tournament. The top two teams advance to the state tournament Nov. 14-15 in Auburn.

Shaft said she is sure OCC will advance to the state tournament and Tunzi also likes OCC’s chances.

“I’m really proud of this team,” Tunzi said. “I really enjoy being with these players. This year’s team is a little stronger and we’re more consistent. We’re playing well now when it counts.”

WORTH A LOOK

It used to be fun to pick on the state office’s Web site, https://www.coasports.org, because it was rarely updated and contained little useful information.

But that is no longer the case. The site has been taken over by new state Sports Information Director Jack Shinar and is now worth looking at.

Football scores from all games in the state are available by noon on Sunday, unlike last year when they were posted on Tuesday.

The state polls are also available on Monday. City College of San Francisco, which is one of four teams with a 7-0 record, is the top team in the North.

Sacramento is second and Fresno and Butte are tied for third.

There are no undefeated teams in Southern California, but defending state champion Palomar (6-1) is ranked first and Cerritos (6-1) is second.

They have added a section for conferences this year as well and are posting available information, including weekly Mission Conference football statistics.

RUNNING FACTS

Because of scoring errors at last week’s Orange Empire Conference cross-country championships, the order of finish for the women’s race was incorrectly reported.

The first three places remain the same with Orange Coast winning, Santa Ana second and Santiago Canyon third. After the correction, Golden West finished fourth with 119 points instead of sixth.

Riverside was fifth, Fullerton sixth and Saddleback seventh.