BORREGO SPRINGS — The CIF-San Diego Section’s Southeastern Conference’s Imperial Valley League Individual Girls’ Golf Championship Meet was held here in late October at the Rams Hill Golf Club.
“The championship meet happens to determine the IVL individual champion for that season and who advances to the CIF Individual tournament,” Southwest High girls’ golf coach and Southeastern Conference representative to the CIF-SDS, A.J. Escalera said. “It doesn’t determine the All-IVL Team per se which is determined by the individual player’s score differentials from the IVL Girls’ Team season matches.”
The IVL Championships were played over the Rams Hill course’s par-36 front nine, with players teeing off at the red tees at 1:00 p.m. and covering a total of 2,544 yards on a pleasant afternoon with good golfing conditions.
The IVL Girls Golf Meet returned to the Rams Hill course after several years away via an upgrade that has made the course available in the fall.
“We played there during the Covid year because we were playing girls’ golf in the spring because they usually shut down in the summer and fall,” Escalera said. “However this year they re-did the turf to be more drought-tolerant and playable during the hotter months so it was available for the girls to use.”
This season’s IVL Girls’ Golf Meet saw sixteen golfers in action, selected out of the forty-five golfers who competed during the ten 2024 round-robin team matches between the six IVL schools that competed in 2024.
Five of the six IVL girls’ golf teams were represented at the IVL Championships with the IVL regular-season match-play champion Southwest High Eagles (9-1) having four players and the runner-up Central High Spartans (8-2) with three individual qualifiers.
Also at the IVL Meet were five golfers from the IVL’s third-place finishing Palo Verde High Yellowjackets, three players from the fourth-place Holtville High Vikings, and one golfer from the sixth-place Imperial High Tigers.
The 2024 IVL Individual Girls’ Golf Championship not only came down to the final hole, but it also required an extra hole before Southwest senior Annika Mitosinka won the title in a one-hole playoff over Eagle junior teammate Phoebe Chow.
“What happened was Pheobe and I each had to shoot a three or four to win on the ninth hole and we both shot three which meant we had to replay the number nine hole,” Mitosinka said.
Mitoskinka, who was playing in her fourth IVL Meet as a three-time returning All-IVL Girls’ Golf performer, found herself for the first time in her four-year career with a shot at the title.
“Teeing off we both went left of the green on the par three and we had to chip to get on the green,” Mitosinka said. “I had a good chip shot and ended up twelve feet from the cup.”
In the moments before she faced the still tricky putt on the sloped green, Mitosinka first reflected on the putt as a fitting ending to her senior season.
“I told myself I had to make this putt…I’ve always dreamed of being in that moment where I had to make a putt like that,” Mitosinka said. “I had a bunch of ups and downs this season…I practiced extremely hard all year, and I knew that was the moment I had worked for.”
Mitosinka — who practiced putting on the greens, particularly the ninth at Rams Hill prior to the IVL Meet and who practices hard on her technique and absorbs coaching — reflected on those as well.
“I thought about my dad (Todd), my coach (Escalera), and Mark Cross who helped me as a coach in Yuma for a year,” Mitosinka said. “They are the ones who believed in me and I heard every one of their voices in my head and I felt like a champion.”
For her IVL Girls’ Golf Meets’ first-place finish and overall season, Mitosinka, who carded a 43 at Rams Hill, was named the 2024 IVL Player of the Year.
Mitosinka was also named to the 2024 Imperial Valley League First Team based on her body of work throughout the IVL season as where the other All-IVL medalist.
Joining Mitosinka on the 2024 All-IVL First Team from the IVL Team Champion Southwest Eagles were juniors Chow and Kianah Alvarez while Eagle senior Makayla Delongs earned Second Team All-IVL honors.
The IVL’s second-place Spartans saw senior Ellison Strahm and sophomore Keelee Howard named to the 2024 All-IVL Girls’ Golf First Team while Central sophomore Julianna Gonzalez was named to the All-IVL Second Team.
Also earning 2024 All-IVL Girls’ Golf First Team honors was Imperial Tiger senior Emma Maring.
In addition, the 2024 All-IVL Girls’ Golf Second Team included two Holtville Vikings, seniors Addison Clunn and Elah Castro, along with three Palo Verde Yellowjacket seniors, Kallie Bradstreet, Mia Peterson, and Ariana Salazar.
For the fifth time in his nine-year career as Southwest Girls Coach, Escalera was named the IVL’s Coach-of-the-Year for leading the Eagles to the IVL championship.
“I’m blessed as a coach because these girls at Southwest are so competitive and they embrace the sport…as a coach, it is cool to watch them grow as both players and people,” Escalera said. “I absolutely believe that golf is teaching them life lessons on the course and off…teaching them to stay level in everything they do.”
