The air was crisp, and the sun’s rays had not yet touched the morning sky. Thursday, November 5th, and 5:30 a.m., the Buena girls golf team gathered at the school van for the ride to the CIF team playoffs. We put our bags in the van, and as soon as our sixth player, Yvonne Antunez, arrived, we were on the road.

Our team slept most of the way, with the exception of Isabelle Muschamp, a Foothill sophomore, Coach Engel, and me. The rest of our team was awakened with a start by a sudden stop as we pulled into the IHOP parking lot where we ate a nutritious breakfast. When we finished, we drove a few miles away to the golf course of Arroyo Grande, called Cypress Ridge.

The driving range was covered with many colors: red, blue, greens, purple, and even yellow and orange. It was like a rainbow of girls, 130 girls to be exact. 22 teams had gathered to play for the four top places that would go on to play and become the CIF southern division champions.

We were told the rules of the course, and we were told that we would each be taken to a different hole to begin with, so that we would all end at approximately the same time. This would be more efficient, as there were 32 groups of girls playing.

We were assigned a hole, for example, I was placed at the 17th hole, and Isabelle Muschamp was ahead of me at the 18th. We each were in a group of 4 with girls from other schools. I was in a group with a player from Oxnard, Valencia, and Thousand Oaks.

We started at 10:00, and after a tiring 18 holes in 6 hours, we finished at 4:00. Everyone gathered back at the clubhouse, eager to find out what we had scored. Our team was not expected to finish at the top, because this we were the first in Ventura County to ever make it as far as the playoffs. This was our accomplishment, and we knew not to expect much better.

Our team scored 538, which is the total of all the scores except for the last player; in this case it was the 119 that I shot. We were disappointed to find that none of us got our best scores, but we were happy to find that we were not in last place, and that we scored 21st place of our Southern division, top 5% in California. The four teams that made it were: Hart, who scored 386, Westlake, who scored 393, Righetti, who scored 423, and Royal, who scored 424.

“For us that was good,” said Coach Engel, “I’m happy with that score.”

Emily Wisma

90

Yvonne Antunez

114

Elizabeth Barninski

105

Chelsey Sainsbury

119

Andi Stewart

112

Isabelle Muschamp

117

Photo: Foothill sophomore, Isabella Muschamp, celebrates Buena’s victory. Photo by Chelsey Sainsbury, The Foothill Dragon Press