Locals seeking turnaround campaigns

GLENDALE — In short, neither the Crescenta Valley High or Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy girls’ golf teams had stellar seasons last year.

The Falcons, accustomed to challenging for Pacific League championships and competing in the CIF Team Divisional, finished fourth in the Pacific League. The Tologs won one match last season while competing in the arduous Mission League.

Both teams are now ready to reverse their respective fortunes and contend for possible individual accolades.

Crescenta Valley will begin a new era, as it will have a new coach in Lee Pope. Pope took over the program from Ken Johnson, who resigned last spring because of family engagements. He’ll look to return the Falcons to their days of winning league titles, the last coming in 2007.

“I’m very excited to be the new coach and be a part of this program,” said Pope, who graduated from Crescenta Valley in 1977 and served the past 11 seasons coaching at all of the different levels of the school’s football program. “It’s a big switch coming from football to golf and we’ll be grinding it out.

“We don’t have a lot of seniors on the team, but we do have some good young players.”

Among those in the mix for Crescenta Valley are juniors Amy Park, Yoojin Lee and Iris Kim. They will be joined by sophomores Deborah Chin and Mikki Moriyama and freshmen Jocelyn Chia and Alice Yoon. The Falcons will be without senior Alice Shin, who is recovering from back surgery.

Pope said the Falcons will seek to get back on track by relying on Chia and Park.

“Chia is battle tested and experienced after playing in a bunch of AGJA tournaments,” Pope said. “It’s rare to have a freshman come in and take over the team, but she carries a big stick.

“Amy is the leader of our team. She’s more than paid her dues with the program.”

Under Coach Bill Sanchez, Flintridge Sacred Heart plans to move up in league after finishing last the past two seasons.

“We are hoping to improve week in and week out,” Sanchez said. “It’s mostly going to be a young team and we would like to have some more experience.

The Tologs will have some veteran leadership in seniors Molly Zwart and Katie Williams. Sacred Heart will also have a pair of freshmen on board in Katie Hartwig and Presley Maron.

“We do have a couple of freshmen who have played a fair amount of golf,” Sanchez said. “We want to make some measurable improvements and hope that it pays off in the end.”