Santa Margarita Exceeds Its Goal, Wins by 11 Shots

Santa Margarita, Orange County’s dominant golf team for the last several years, wasn’t feeling so invincible this season.

Sure the Eagles lost only one match--a narrow decision to Corona del Mar in Sea View League play--but by Santa Margarita’s standards, its play was inconsistent. So Eagle Coach Tim O’Hara gave his team a modest goal going into Monday’s Southern Section regional at Big Canyon Country Club.

“Going into today,” O’Hara said, “we were telling the kids, ‘Let’s just get in the top four.’ ”

In the end, however, the Eagles remained unscathed, winning the South Coast regional by 11 strokes over second-place Villa Park. University was third, five-strokes back at 402. Servite was fourth (403), beating out Aliso Niguel (406) for the final spot in the Southern Section team championship next Monday at Saticoy Country Club in Ventura County.

Santa Margarita, ranked second in the county, won with its balance on a course that proved to be treacherous for 120 golfers from the Century, Garden Grove, Golden West, Olympic, Pacific Coast, Sea View and South Coast leagues.

Only 27 players broke 80 on the 6,667-yard par-72 course, including all six Eagles. Andrew Oh of Cerritos Whitney was medalist with a two-over-par 74.

Santa Margarita got its best performances from deep in the lineup. No. 5-man Jimmy Pittenger, who had to win an intrasquad playoff to even make the team, shot 76 and No. 6-man Brad Meer shot 77.

Sea View League individual champion Nicholas Fritz and Kelly Craig, the Eagles’ top player, shot 78. Nate Blauer and Tom Osseck shot 79.

It was the third consecutive regional title for Santa Margarita, which last season went on to win the section title as well.

In comparison, third-ranked Villa Park is a postseason neophyte. The Spartans will be advancing to their first section team championship tournament. Last year, they missed qualifying by several strokes.

Adam Hambarian (78), Ryan Michel (79) and Geoff Cohn (80) are four-year starters. Mark Hewlett (80) and Matt Dante (80) rounded out the Villa Park scoring.

Top-ranked University was paced by freshmen Brian Sinay (76) and Ryan Miller (79) and sophomore Ron Won (78).

Fourth-ranked Servite struggled a bit with only two players shooting better than 80--Adam Ainbinder (75) and Chris Arns (78)--but had enough to hang onto the final spot.