Vaqs win at home
NORTHEAST GLENDALE — Glendale Community College’s men’s golf team accomplished two things Monday during its Western State Conference home match at Oakmont Country Club.
First, the Vaqueros won by five strokes over College of the Canyons. Of greater significance, the victory allowed them to build upon their chances in their quest to qualify for the Southern California Regionals for a second season in a row.
“With the win, we’ve been able to separate ourselves,” said Glendale college Coach Greg Osbourne, whose team carded a 390 and leads third-place Santa Barbara City College by eight wins with three matches remaining. “This is basically what we set out to accomplish.
“Our scores weren’t the best for being on our home course, but we ended up coming out on top.”
The top two teams from conference automatically qualify for the regionals, which will be held May 7 at Glendora Country Club.
Canyons, which owns a nine-win lead over Glendale, finished second Monday with a 395, followed by Allan Hancock (399), Ventura (404), Citrus (405), Santa Barbara (417) and Bakersfield (419).
Leading the way for the Vaqueros was Michael Timpson, who fired a four-over-par 75. Timpson, a Crescenta Valley High graduate and the conference’s reigning individual champion, finished with 14 pars, two birdies and two double-bogeys.
“We came into the match with an outlook that we can make more progress from an individual and team standpoint,” Timpson said. “We wanted to come in no worse than second [Monday] and maybe be in line to win.
“I think this will now boost our confidence some more. At the same time, we know that we need to work harder in the next match.”
Glendale received a 77 from Richie Maloof, a St. Francis graduate, and 76 from Glendale High graduate Ryan Chotivichitr. Mathias Dahl and Nick Quintanilla shot 81s for the Vaqueros, who advanced to the state tournament last season for the first time in the program’s history.
Austin Kaiser of Allan Hancock fired a 70 to earn medalist honors.
Osbourne said there’s still improvements that the Vaqueros need to make.
“We have three 18-hole matches left and they know they need to get better with their overall games,” said Osbourne, whose team won its second conference match this season. “The matches can get harder [down the stretch].”
The next conference match will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at Santa Maria Country Club.
