Trojans Win With Silent Treatment

This time, the University High girls’ golf team made a loud statement without uttering a word.

A week after nearly getting disqualified for talking on the course, the Trojans let their clubs do the talking during a dominating 14-stroke victory Monday in the Southern Section team final at Montecito Country Club in Santa Barbara.

Trojan junior Angela Won, the only player among 15 teams to break 80, shot a scintillating two-over-par 75 on a difficult course and led the wrongly accused Trojans to a team total of 243 and the largest margin of victory in the three-year history of the championship.

North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake was second with 257 and Aliso Niguel finished third with 265. Villa Park shot 269 and won a tiebreaker over Redondo Union, giving Orange County teams three of the four available berths in the CIF-WSCGA finals Nov. 28 at the SCGA Members Club in Murrieta.

University was disqualified from the section final after winning the Southern Division championship Nov. 6. Several teams lodged complaints that Trojan players had spoken to one another during the round, thus violating a rule that prohibits communication between players, coaches and spectators.

A day later, Southern Section Commissioner Jim Staunton overturned the disqualification and declared the Trojans eligible for the final, saying that the rule had been inappropriately applied because the University conversations did not include sharing advice.

“It was really important for us to do this,” said University senior Sunny Lee, who shot 81, the fourth-best round of the day. “We wanted to show we can win without talking.”

Won started with back-to-back birdies and finished by chipping in for birdie from 15 yards on the 18th. She also drained a slippery 20-foot downhill putt on the 10th for birdie and might have shot lower if not for a disastrous 14th.

Her ball was buried under the lip of a steep green-side bunker and when she tried to hack it out, it popped straight up and rolled into her deep footprint. Another hack got the ball to a playable lie and she finally got it on the green with her third shot from the sand. She took a triple bogey on the par-3 hole.

“[The good start] was very important, I think,” Won said. “After that, you don’t have any pressure.”

That was a far cry from how the Trojans felt before they teed off. Feeling like marked targets, the University players made every move with caution and were especially careful not to interact with one another on the course.

“We were all really scared,” Lee said. “We were all shaking going to our tees.”

It is the second section title in three years for the Trojans, who won the inaugural championship in 1998. They were fourth last year, but went on to win the CIF-WSCGA title.

The key for University Monday was its ability to keep focus on a course that gave most teams fits. The sloping greens were difficult to read and the rolling fairways rarely offered flat lies.

Only 17 players broke 90 and just eight of those shot better than 85. With Michelle Barth’s 87, the Trojans were the only team with three scores better than 90.

“Everything was breaking,” Barth said. “Not just a little break, but big swooping breaks.”

Aliso Niguel, making its first appearance in the section final, was led by freshman Leisl Hasbrouck, who shot 83.

Senior Shelly Raworth shot 84 to lead Villa Park, but it was senior Megan Schindelbeck who propelled the Spartans.

Schindelbeck’s 102 did not count in the team score, but it was good enough to beat the 109 by Redondo Union No. 4 player Laura Enseki and give the Spartans the tiebreaker and the final berth in the CIF-SCGA finals.

“She did the same thing against Dana Hills earlier in the year,” Villa Park Coach Gordon Sutorious said of Schindelbeck. “Our goal was to get to the WSCGA finals. I wish we had done it better, but we did it.”