Dana Hills Arrives for Title

When the Dana Point Dana Hills High girls’ golf team arrived Thursday morning at Desert Willow Golf Resort in Palm Desert, nobody paid much attention.

After shooting a team score of 412 and winning the Southern Section team title by one shot over Long Beach Wilson, the Dolphins were difficult to ignore.

Palos Verdes Peninsula shot 418 to finish third and Palm Desert finished fourth with 428. The top four teams advance to the season-ending CIF-WSCGA championships Nov. 27 at the SCGA Members Club in Murrieta.

The odds were against Dana Hills, which shot 460 on Monday to earn the fifth and final berth out of the Southern Divisional. Divisional winners Huntington Beach Marina, Wilson and Peninsula, and Palm Desert, playing its home course, were considered the teams to beat.

But the Dolphins finally unleashed the potential they had been striving for all season.

“I knew we had a good team, but after we took fifth on Monday I was thinking ‘Oh boy. Maybe we don’t have as good a shot at this as I thought,”’ Coach Ron Moulton said.

Carling Cho, a senior who has committed to San Jose State, led the Dolphins with a tournament-best four-under-par 68. Brittany Tall shot 81 and Andrea Fiumfreddo shot 83. Andrea Dupray and Jackie Kazarian rounded out the Dana Hills scoring with 89 and 91, respectively.

Wilson, led by Jennifer Tangtiphaiboontana’s 69, seemed to have the title in its hands when the early scores were posted, but Dana Hills broke the Bruins’ hearts.

“If you told me we were going to shoot 413, I would have been very happy,” Wilson Coach Jim Ferguson said. “Everyone can cite instances where they lost a stroke here or there, but Dana Hills played great. There is no defense in golf and if they beat 413 then they deserve to win.”

The Dolphins know all about finishing on the short end of a one-shot difference. Last year, they missed qualifying for the section finals by a shot. In 1999, they missed by two. But an eagle by Cho on the par-five 18th after reaching the green in two and another by Tall, who holed a five iron from the 12th fairway, helped break the curse.

“For some reason it’s hard to get everyone to play a good round at the same time,” Tall said. “We weren’t really thinking about winning so this is kind of unexpected.”