GIRLS GOLF WINS DUAL MEET, TAKES SECOND IN TCAL GROUP TOURNEY
On Monday, the ‘Stangs easily beat Notre Dame (San Jose) at San Jose Municipal Golf Course. Annie Cockerill was the medalist with a 47. Kristen Campos followed with a 48 while Carla Navarro, Rowena Tablias and Stephanie Walker each shot a 54.
“That was amazing,” said coach Kari Williams about the three 54 scores. “Those were really good scores for them.”
On Tuesday, the Mustangs teed it up again, this time at a TCAL Group Tourney at San Juan Oaks in San Juan Bautista with the public schools in the league. Gilroy took second with a team score of 201 behind San Benito (198). Alvarez, Live Oak and Salinas rounded out the last three team spots.
Campos’ 43, her lowest score of the season, was good for second behind San Benito’s Marissa Gutierrez (38), who was the medalist. Cockerill fired a 49 and Tablias shot a 53.
Despite playing on the tough San Juan Oaks back nine, the team did 19 strokes better than it did at the previous week’s TCAL Group Tourney at Ridgemark.
“The back nine at San Juan Oaks is a much more difficult track than the front nine for sure,” Williams said. “It was a good showing for us.”
The Mustangs face Notre Dame at Corral de Tierra at 3:30pm on Monday before hosting the third TCAL Group Tourney of the season at Gilroy Golf Course on Tuesday at 3:30pm.
FIELD HOCKEY DOWNS RLS
Despite not capitalizing on as many scoring opportunities as they would have liked, the Mustangs shut out Robert Louis Stevenson 3-0 to remain perfect in MTAL play.
Though the score didn’t show it, co-head coach Erin Gemar said the Gilroy squad dominated the offense for much of the game. The team had 15 short corner opportunities and 11 shots on goal.
“We definitely had it down in their zone,” Gemar said.
Gilroy (3-0 in MTAL, 4-1-1 overall) turned two of those penalty chances into goals, once in the first half when Erin Magill scored off assists from Dana Schoeneman and Amanda Spellman and again in the second half when Jackie Moreno scored on assists by Magill and Spellman (2 assists).
“Spellman … was definitely the playmaker of the game,” Gemar said. “And Karlie Sandoval had really nice lead passes to teammates, using both sides of the field. She did that better than anybody.”
The other Gilroy goal was scored in the first half by Kelly Perkins on an assist by Schoeneman (2 assists), who played all 60 minutes.
In goal for the second half, Stephanie Glenn held off an end-of-game surge by RLS.
“They came off really strong in the last eight to 10 minutes,” Gemar said. “It got a little scary.”
The JV team also shut out RLS, but by a score of 2-0.
Gilroy doesn’t play a game until next Thursday, when the ‘Stangs travel to North Salinas.
CROSS COUNTRY AT CHIEFTAIN CLASSIC
This past Saturday at the Chieftain Classic in Salinas, the Gilroy cross country teams got a taste of where they stand amongst a wide range of CCS competition at their first invitational race of the season.
Though the competition was foreign (there were over 20 schools in the varsity races), the course was not. The Classic was the third time the ‘Stangs have run this season on the Toro Park course, which largely explains why 20 of 22 Gilroy runners had personal bests at the race.
Gilroy’s best finisher was Arnulfo Velasquez, who took fifth out of 94 runners with a time of 16:26. Marcos Corona of Willow Glen won the race in a time of15:43. The next Gilroy finisher after Velasquez was Allan Chan, who ran a personal best 17:54 for 38th place.
Though Velasquez is running great times for this point in the season, Silva said the competitive senior veteran is never satisfied with his results – unless he breaks the tape first.
“He likes to win,” Silva said. “He’s never happy not being in first.”
But Silva was happy with the overall performance of all levels of the boys’ squad. The frosh-soph team tied for third out of 22 schools, with Derek Pesta (5th, 17:29, PR) and Romero Diaz (9th, 18:02, PR) leading the way.
The JV team was led by Spencer Silva (19th place), Johnny La (20th) and Dylan Whitmer (23rd).
Megan Litle was the lone girls varsity runner. Her time was 22:48, a personal record.
The JV girls took 7th as a team and was led by Kathleen Miller’s 10th place finish (23:14). Christina Ginn took 23rd (24:27) and Christine Bobula took 21st (25:03).
The ‘Stangs host San Benito Tuesday at 3:30pm on their new course through Christmas Hill Park.
“We changed the course so the whole course will be in the park,” Cathy Silva said. “It will be fun to see what the times are.”
