On Sep. 8,  Bonita Vista High (BVH) girls’ varsity golf lost against Academy of Our Lady of Peace (OLP) at the Chula Vista golf course. The match focuses on the two teams striving to get the ball in the hole in the fewest amount of swings. BVH girls’ varsity golf captain and sophomore Victoria Takaki and freshman Leilani Mena take on OLP  juniors Ava Kuhn and Sienna Duggan. It was a close match with BVH losing by 257 to OLP’s 237. 

Starting off the first hole, OLP tees off first and ends with Mena. This hole goes by fast as it does not take the players long to get the ball into the hole. Mena starts off with a birdie at par four taking one stroke to score, while OLP’s player Duggan tags behind her with four strokes. Takaki and Kuhn end the hole in a bogey.

“Before we started playing I felt more confident than I have ever been since I’m on my home course, so I felt confident enough,” said Mena. 

In hole two, Mena and Kuhn both take eighth strokes in a par four and Takaki ends with a bogey.  Coming into hole three, Mena finishes with four strokes making it a par on a par four. As Kuhn tries to recover from getting her ball out of the rough, she ends in nine strokes.  

“Golf teaches you patience and perseverance and just dedication because golf is not an easy sport,” Takaki said. 

The tension increases as Takaki, Duggan and Mena all score a par on par three in hole four. The BVH duo plays two strokes to stick their ball into the hole. Halfway through the game at hole five, Takaki scores another bogey on a par five. Mena tries to get her ball out of the rough, making it challenging for her in this round. Once the ball is out of the rough, it takes her five tedious hits to get her ball into the green, but finished the course with three strokes, 11 strokes in total. 

“We go for week to week improvement. If it’s [the improvement is] by 1 stroke, I’m happy as an individual. If our team scores by one stroke, I’m happy as long as we are improving week to week,” Coach Tony Valdez said.

In hole six, par four, Kuhn, Takaki and Mena finish in a par, Duggan closing it with a bogey. Hole seven par five, the BVH players and Duhn are able to get a par—both BVH players exceed using one stroke to get the ball into the hole. In par four, hole eight goes by smoothly as all players besides Duhn—who got a par—scoring a bogey. Takaki shares her outlook on the team and her current thoughts on the state of them.

“Everyone’s been working pretty hard. We actually beat last years’ record, so that’s amazing and we’ve only played a few games.I know we are going to do better. We are doing pretty good,” Takaki said. 

To end the game, in a par three, hole nine, Takaki and Duhn score a par and Mena and Kuhn score a triple bogey. BVH ended the game with an overall score of 257 and OLP with 237.  Although BVH is defeated, Valdez holds optimism for California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), an end of the year game played with different schools in the Sweetwater Union High School District. 

“This is only our 5th match out of 16. [BVH has] 3 quarters of the season left to play and I wanna qualify at least 2 people for CIF. Last year we had 0, so hopefully I can double that this year,” Valdez said.