Better wasn't good enough - not even close, actually - for Clovis West High in the Southern California Girls Golf Championship on Monday at the SCGA Golf Course in Murrieta.
The Golden Eagles shot 414 and placed sixth in an unprecedented performance for a Central Section representative in the SoCal final.Their goal was to finish among the top three and advance as a group to Thursday's CIF State Championship at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach.But they were no match for perennial state power Torrance (19-over 379), Torrey Pines-San Diego (390) and Peninsula (393) on a course that presented swift greens and ornery pin placements on ridges."We actually played pretty well," Clovis West coach Ken Shipley said. "That was a pretty good score, just not as good as [five] other teams. And those are very strong teams down there."Eagles senior Asia Adell rebounded well from a miserable 84 in last week's section individual tournament at Bakersfield's Bravo Country Club and shot a 2-over par 74 on the much more difficult SCGA course. But she missed by one stroke advancing to the state final.The section's next-best efforts came Clovis' Madchen Ly (77) and Clovis East's Hannah Sodersten (82). They placed 1-2 in the section individual tournament.Section team runner-up Frontier (419) placed seventh in Monday's eight-team field.Clovis West narrowed the gap on the SoCal competition with a team that set standards wire-to-wire while capturing a fourth straight section title.Two years ago, on the same SCGA course, they shot 446 for seventh place.Then, last year, at Canyon Crest Country Club in Riverside, they shot 440 for a repeat seventh-place finish.