Season ends for Edison, Corona del Mar boys’ golf teams in CIF SCGA Qualifier
Heavy rain greeted golfers Thursday morning at the CIF Southern Section Southern California Golf Assn. Team Qualifier at Goose Creek Golf Club.
The heavy rain turned to drizzly conditions. The sun broke through in the early afternoon in Jurupa Valley, but with that came wind.
The Edison and Corona del Mar high school boys’ golf teams couldn’t overcome the challenging conditions. The season ended for the Chargers and Sea Kings, neither of which earned the top-four team finish required to advance to the Regional State Qualifier on May 23 at Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena.
Edison shot 27-over-par 382, which was eighth among the 14 teams competing and seven shots off the fourth-place total of Walnut. CdM shot 393, placing 12th.
Mater Dei and Anaheim Discovery Christian tied for the low team round with 364. Servite took third at 368. Taehoon Song of Anaheim Discovery Christian had the low individual round with a six-under-par 65.
Three local players had a chance to advance as individuals, but the season ended for Edison’s Pete DiBernardo, who carded an 81, as well as CdM’s T.J. Jenkins (81) and Guy Clauss (85). The trio had qualified for the SCGA Qualifier as individuals at Skylinks Golf Course in Long Beach on May 6, but none finished among the top 28 individuals to advance to the Regional State Qualifier.
“We were trying to adapt to the conditions, and it was really, really hard,” CdM coach Mike Starkweather said. “It’s hard to stay focused when you’re cold, then you get warmer, then you get cold. It just used [my golfers] up. We tried to get a couple of practice rounds in the rain, but every time we did, the rain would stop. It’s important to play in the rain, to get the experience, and unfortunately we didn’t have any matches in the rain, even with all the rain we had.”
Freshman Timothy Jung led Edison with his 72, while Joseph Chun (73), Vito DiBernardo (77) and Tony DiBernardo (79) also scored. Pete DiBernardo and Tiger Tahvildari tied for the fifth scorer honors with an 81 each.
Sophomore Colin Huang led the Surf League champion Sea Kings with a 76, followed by Calder Overfelt (77), John Tipton (79), Ryan Shih (80) and Jenkins.
Jenkins, bound for Sonoma State, had an inauspicious start to his round. He shot a quadruple-bogey nine on his first hole of the day, No. 4. He came back to birdie Nos. 7 and 12, each par-five holes, but was obviously not pleased with his day.
“My clubs kept slipping out of my hands,” Jenkins said. “It was pouring down rain for the first hole. It was just a struggle to try to bounce back from a ‘quad’ on your first hole, but I got down to three over going into 13, where I made a stupid double [bogey]. I just got unlucky. I was pinned up against a tree and had a bad lie.
“It was just a windy day. I didn’t hold up too well to the conditions. We were switching jackets all the time, putting it on, taking it off. I was just trying to keep the positivity up through the bad conditions.”
Edison, which won the CIF Southern Section Southern Division championship Monday at Mile Square Golf Course after shooting a 358, couldn’t find similar success Thursday. Still, coach Brendan Patch, in his 22nd year, expressed satisfaction at his team’s season. He said this was the first Edison team to advance out of the divisional tournament since his 2007 team that won the state championship.
Jung birdied the fourth and seventh holes for Edison. The future still appears bright for the Chargers, which will lose the DiBernardo triplets to graduation but return every other key contributor.
Each Edison grouping for Thursday’s round also had a CdM player, and the teams enjoyed the camaraderie even on the challenging day.
“They edged us out in league, and we edged them in CIF,” Tony DiBernardo said. “We know these guys pretty well, and it was fun out there. It was good to compete against them, you know?”
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