This season for Bakersfield College women’s golf was filled with great individual performances, but they couldn’t put it together as a team.
“I thought it was a fairly good season, but we weren’t able to reach our goals which is pretty disappointing,” said women’s golf coach Bob Paillet.
“I thought some of the bright spots were seeing Malea Miller breaking a BC record and seeing Paula Robinson shoot a career best,” he said.
He said that the team didn’t meet their goal of a state championship, and even though they played well at times, he thought they didn’t get enough consistency.
He also added that losing Miller and Robinson will hurt them, but he thinks that Kambria Ulrich will be a fine player next year as long as she is not hurt.
“I am really excited about Kambria coming back, that we can get some talented freshmen and hopefully the team continues to get better,” he said.
Cross-country
BC’s cross-country team’s season is over and the team met the goals that it set out for from the beginning.
“We were a young team, but we were able to accomplish some of our goals like qualifying out of the conference and qualifying to the state meet,” said women’s cross-country coach Pam Kelley.
Kelley added that because they were committed from the beginning, they were able to have those successes.
“Each year it gets harder to qualify, but I think since this year all the freshman got to experience it and by next year we will know what to expect,” she said.
She added that this year was a success, but they are excited about next year.
“I think it was a successful season. We accomplished our goals. We’re looking forward to the future,” she said.
The men’s cross-country team’s coach David Frickel gave his thoughts on how the men’s season went.
“I think we had a very good season by achieving some of our goals and I’m happy with the results,” he said.
“I think it’s a big achievement when you reach the Southern Cals and the state championship.”
He added that everyone made big improvements from the beginning of the year and he said he is looking forward for them to improving during track season.
The men will lose their top four runners next year, but Frickel hopes that those returning and the incoming freshmen will step up.
Wrestling
BC’s wrestling team had a non-conference match against East Los Angeles College to make up for a match that was canceled Sept. 30.
The makeup match was on Nov. 19, team scores were not held and it was a round-robin of individual matchups.
“I thought we did good and I thought it was important to have mat time before the regionals, and I think that at first when it got canceled I thought it hurt us, but we have benefited from the match being canceled,” said wrestling coach Bill Kalivas.
“I thought we looked better defensively on our feet and escaping, but now all we need to work on is limiting mistakes. I also want to see them continue to compete and just let the athleticism take over.”
He added that he thought Marc Collier, Jesus Valdovinos, Tyson Pinon, Brandon Silva and Jonathan Gomez wrestled well.
Pinon wrestled in both the 197-weight class and heavyweight, and had three wins and three losses.
Collier won all four of his matches including an impressive victory over number-one wrestler in the state Jake Harrison from Cerritos College.
Kalivas also said that they don’t know the matchups at the regionals yet, but he wants at least five or six wrestlers to qualify from the regionals.
The regionals will be at Palomar College in San Marcos on Dec. 3.
UPDATE Dec. 20 @ 1:30 p.m. : The team sent five wrestlers to the 2011 South Regionals. Marc Collier (125s), Jonathan Gomez (141s), Jacob Pendleton (165s) and Lance Castaneda (174s) all advanced to the 2011 Community College State Wrestling Championships.
At the state tournament, hosted by Santa Rosa Junior College on Dec. 9-10, BC finished 10th overall out of a field of 20 schools.
Collier, Pendleton and Castaneda all finished 5th in their respective weight classes, with Gomez finishing at 8th.