Team on par with expectations
BOYS GOLF This season, the young team hopes to keep its Palomares League title.
March 16, 2016
When a team loses four seniors, including a league MVP, it usually causes a stir but, head coach Tony McCabe doesn’t see this as a setback. Instead, he sees it as a positive development for this year’s boys varsity golf.
This year is McCabe’s second year as the boys’ coach, returning to the position he once held when the school had first opened.
The team started its season with a 202-244 win over the Claremont Wolfpack last Tuesday. The team was led by senior captain Joshua Song and sophomore Thomas Lee, who shot par and 39 on a nine-hole match, respectively.
On Thursday, the Brahmas once again beat the Wolfpack, 196-223. Song and Lee led the team with both of them shooting 37. Freshmen Sam Cho and Brian Chiu both earned a score of 41. Senior Christian Kim shot for 40.
While the Brahmas are out to a successful start, McCabe initially believed the team wasn’t ready for matches due to the inexperience of new varsity players.
“This year, I didn’t set a lot of [preseason] matches. I needed to have them ready for the league matches. Sometimes you have these big experienced teams that just go out and play everyone, but this season we have a lot of freshmen,” McCabe said.
However, the Brahmas gained more of McCabe’s trust during their preseason. The team has only participated in the Ayala Tournament thus far, where the Brahmas placed fourth and shot 380.
“Four hundred is a really good score. Under that is the elite teams. We haven’t been putting up those numbers. [The boys] just got ready and played a good day,” McCabe said.
The Brahmas were led by Song, who shot par and birdied three of his last four holes, and fellow senior captain Dylan Stone, who shot 74. Cho and Chiu went for 77 and 80, respectively, and Lee earned a score of 77.
Palm Desert took the tourney with a score of 367, while Sunny Hills and Palos Verdes were just a few strokes ahead of DB with scores of 375 and 379.
According to McCabe, Palm Desert, Sunny Hills, and Palos Verdes are three of the best teams in the state. However, Palm Desert managed to top the Brahmas in the CIF playoffs last year by only a single stroke.
The only other preseason match the Brahmas competed in was against Diamond Ranch. DB won the match, but it was not counted as an official match due to a lack of players.
Now, McCabe believes that the Brahmas have a good chance to repeat as Palomares League champs, even with a younger squad.
“Everybody got a little better this year and we lost four college golfers. A college golf team left and now we have a high school golf team. They’re a little young. We’re just a younger team and they have glitches some time. We’re still a team to beat,” McCabe said.
