All the motivation members of the Palisades High girls golf team need is on display in the classroom of head coach James Paleno in the form of three City championship plaques — symbols of the success the Dolphins’ boys program has enjoyed the last several years.
Photos: James Paleno
The girls hope to one day add one of their own to the coach’s collection and while it might be premature to think they can win the section title in just their second season since the progran was reinstated, they aim to lower their scores from last fall when three medaled by finishing in the top 10 at league finals.
“We had 26 kids at tryouts, which is more than last year and we have the potential to be even better,” Paleno said. “We’ve been hitting foam balls on the baseball field, we’ve gone to the range and 3-par courses, but most of them don’t even have their own set of golf clubs.”
Despite the graduation of Miya Eberlein (who was third at league finals) the Golfin’ Dolphins return three of their most consistent performers last fall in Miya’s sister Sophia Eberlein (seventh at league finals), Izzy Simmons (ninth) and Camila Paleno, the coach’s niece.
Joining them are returners Maury Marin, Carly Weitz, Sarah Maninger and Pauline Shumilov, promising senior Alegra Gurian, freshman Melanie Matayoshi from Paul Revere Middle School and another freshman, Abby Brown from Corpus Christi School.
“The girls are very inspired by what the boys have done,” Paleno said. “They want to do the same thing. We were second in league last year and took steps in the right direction. We definitely should be far more competitive this year.”
Another goal will be to qualify players for the City finals, in which only two teams and a handful of girls participated last season.
The format has been changed to allow more teams and players to participate in the finals. Last year, nobody from league champion LACES qualified for the finals.
League matches consist of nine holes, with the five lowest scores counting towards the team total. Joining Palisades and LACES in the City 3 League are Venice and University. Most of the top City girls teams hail from the San Fernando Valley.
“Granada Hills is for the girls what we are for the boys, right now,” Paleno said. “They’re the cream of the crop, the team everyone’s shooting for. That’s what we aspire to be and we’ll get there. Right now the goal is just to shoot as low as we can and try to win our league. That would be a great accomplishment for us.”
Paleno is stressing the fundamentals in practice and, with the aid of several members of the Pali High boys squad, hopes to be able to work a few practice rounds in as well as time on the putting green and driving range.
Should Palisades continue to improve at the rate it did last season, the league crown will be attainable.
In their first two league matches last fall the Golfin’ Dolphins averaged 312.5 strokes over nine holes. In the next three matches the team scoring average dropped to 274.3 — a difference of 38.2 shots.
Paleno resigned as Pali High’s varsity boys basketball coach in May 2013 and rekindled the girls team the following January. He restored the boys golf program in 1998.
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