GOLF / SOUTHERN SECTION TEAM FINALS : Foster’s Finish Gives Santa Margarita Second

GOLETA —  The Southern Section team golf championship can be a nerve-racking experience.

Each shot a player takes not only adds to his--or her--total but also to the team’s.

Santa Margarita senior Mark Foster felt the full weight of that pressure Monday at Sandpiper Golf Course and survived.

“I finished strong, but it was just brutal,” he said. “Mentally brutal.”

Foster had birdies on two of his last four holes to finish with a five-over-par 77, helping Santa Margarita to second place in the section, 10 strokes behind Palm Desert.

Foster didn’t have Santa Margarita’s low round--Kellee Booth shot 76--but as the Eagles’ final golfer on the course, the team’s finish was in his hands.

Foster made birdie on the 421-yard, par-4 17th to move him to five-over-par, even for the back nine. But on the 18th, the four-foot putt he had to make for par worried him.

“It was a downhill slider and it scared me to death,” Foster said. “Everyone was watching and I knew that would be an important putt.”

It was, if only for Orange County bragging rights. Sinking that putt gave Santa Margarita a 397 total, one ahead of Trabuco Hills. Fourth-place Westlake Village Westlake had 402. The top four teams advanced to the CIF-SCGA Championships June 7 at Stockdale Country Club in Bakersfield.

Booth, the top-ranked female junior golfer in the nation, caused a stir by posting the fifth best score of the competition. Booth, a junior, won the CIF-SCGA individual girls’ title last year, but Monday she played from the same tees as the boys on the 7,067-yard course.

Booth had two birdies--including one on a 30-foot chip shot--10 pars and six bogeys.

“I was just trying to make pars,” Booth said. “The bogeys are going to come, obviously, because this course is so long for me.”

Freshman Steve Wagner shot 79, the only other Eagle player to break 80.

Trabuco Hills, which finished a shot behind Santa Margarita for the second consecutive year, didn’t have any spectacular scores but was solid enough to advance.

Last season, the Mustangs finished fourth in the sectional championship before winning the CIF-SCGA title. Zachary Allen shot 77 and Brett Poulos, who beat Roger Micone for Trabuco Hills’ final spot last week, had a 78.

Mark Mignone, who has accepted a golf scholarship at Seton Hall, shot 80.

Mignone predicted a Trabuco Hills victory before the CIF-SCGA competition last season and said the team is confident again.

“We will prevail, that’s what we’ve been saying. Because we just rise to the occasion,” he said.

Servite, the only other Orange County team at the competition, finished eighth with 414. Freshman Jeff McGraw shot 78, one better than senior Matt Kliner.