Camarillo Enjoys View of Course

Consistency.

Depth.

Superb grouping.

Those are the main reasons the Camarillo High boys’ golf team is off to its best start in at least 15 years with a 14-0 record, including 5-0 in Pacific View League play.

The Scorpions were runners-up to Rio Mesa in the league last year, but they’ve beaten the Spartans, Hart, Simi Valley and Nordhoff, among others, this season.

“I’m not surprised that we’re good,” said eighth-year Coach Bill Dowden. ‘But our consistency has been an added bonus.”

Camarillo doesn’t have a standout player like Tommy Hajduk of Nordhoff, Justin Ohye of Calabasas or Brian Edick of Hart, but the Scorpions have broken 380 in six of 12 matches, thanks to the play of senior Jordan Silvertrust, juniors Chris Briney and Randy Carpenter, sophomore Jeff Riddle and freshman Kyle Dowden, the coach’s son.

Dowden, Briney, Carpenter and Riddle are averaging between 75.8 and 76.8 strokes per round while playing on courses with a par of 71 or 72. Silvertrust has been a solid No. 5 player.

Camarillo’s tight grouping was evident in a 376-443 victory over Oxnard at Las Posas Country Club in Thousand Oaks on Tuesday, when Dowden earned medalist honors with a three-over par 74, followed by Briney and Carpenter at 75 and Riddle and Silvertrust at 76.

The score is a school record, one stroke better than the team shot in defeating Rio Mesa on March 16, and has the Scorpions feeling confident about their chances of advancing to the Southern Section championships and perhaps the CIF-Southern California Golf Assn. tournament.

“We really wanted to beat Rio Mesa for the league title,” Silvertrust said. “But now that we’re still undefeated, we’re looking at [the CIF-SCGA tournament].

Advancing to CIF-SCGA play won’t be easy because only the top four teams from the section championships qualify, but Silvertrust doesn’t believe talking about it will affect a squad that has little experience playing in high-pressure tournaments.

“It’s a good motivator,” said Silvertrust, who will play for Cal Lutheran next year. ‘We don’t feel any other pressure at all. We just go out and have fun. We don’t worry about bad shots when we hit them. We just put them behind us and focus on the next shot.”

Dowden, an assistant on a Fresno Clovis West team that won the Central Section title in 1985, said Camarillo’s success hasn’t changed the team’s attitude. At least, not on the surface.

“My kids are very stoic,” he said. “They’re pretty stoic about everything. They don’t seem to be any more confident now than they were in the first match.”

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Although Kyle Dowden is the youngest player on Camarillo’s varsity roster, he is the most experienced in high-caliber tournaments.

He has played in the last seven World Junior championships at Torrrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, finishing 14th out of 160 players in the 13-14 age class last year.

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L.A. Baptist and Village Christian have been long-standing members of the Alpha League in football, basketball, baseball, track and field and volleyball.

But this is the first year of golf in the league.

L.A. Baptist played in the Tri-Valley League before this season and Village Christian was a free-lance school, but both have joined Granada Hills Hillcrest Christian and Thousand Oaks Hillcrest Christian to form the Alpha League this season.

Paraclete will join the league in golf next year and L.A. Baptist Coach Maury Neville said there has been talk of Pasadena Marshall and Kilpatrick joining in the next few years.