HALFMOON — The Saratoga Springs varsity girls golf team has started clicking at the right time, as the Blue Streaks captured the team title at the 2023 Suburban Council Tournament on Sept. 26, held at the Fairways of Halfmoon.
“We stuck together, we definitely held each other up,” said sophomore Sophia Jackson. “In the end, we came out on top, and we’re pretty happy about it.”
Jackson paced the Blue Streaks, shooting 42 to finish third overall individually. Lira Bonitatibus shot 46, Paeton Koshgarian shot 49, and Emily Landau shot 53 for Saratoga. The team’s combined score of 190 was enough to hold off second-place Guilderland (194 points), while Colonie and Shaker (202 points each) tied for third.
“I was just trying to put up a good score, so I could contribute to the team the best that I could,” said Landau, who won the Suburban Council individual championship last year. “I just tried to have fun when I was playing, just because I know I can put up a better score if I’m having fun.”
It is the second consecutive Suburban Council championship for the Saratoga girls’ team, but this year’s victory comes after a regular season that saw the Blue Streaks drop several close matches.
“If you look at the scores throughout the entire season, the Suburban Council girls’ golf has become incredibly competitive,” said head coach Karen Cavotta. “On the bus that morning, I talked to them about that again, and said, ‘Listen, we have just as much opportunity as anyone else. We might not have the record that a couple of the other teams had, but we have the scores, we have the ability.’”
Saratoga will send five golfers to sectionals this year, with the four who represented the Blue Streaks at the Suburban Council Tournament set to attend, along with ninth-grader Lily Collier.
Cavotta said the team is “a great group,” noting that they are supportive of each other, and that the team has bought into something Cavotta said she often tells her golfers, “‘If it’s not your best day, make it the best day you can give us.’”
“It helps that they really support each other,” she added. “They really do. They always want everyone to have their best day.”
The Blue Streaks finished their regular season on Wednesday against Columbia, and now prepare for the Section 2 Tournament. Saratoga finished second in the 2022 sectional tournament to Albany Academy.
Cavotta and Bonitatibus noted the sectional tournament will be a challenge, consisting of 18 holes compared to the Suburban Council Tournament’s nine holes.
“The big thing I said to them was that we’ve shown, throughout the year, our continued improvement,” said Cavotta. “I think people are looking at us a little bit more than they were halfway through the season. I think they’ve gained confidence, I think they feel pretty good about themselves.”
Bonitatibus said the victory at Suburbans is a “confidence-booster” ahead of sectionals.
“It showed us that we were able to do it, all of us,” Bonitatibus said. “So it just gave us a lot of confidence that we could continue to do well.”
“We didn’t have our best season, so I think this win really uplifted us, and gave us a bit more hope for how sectionals might go,” Koshgarian added.
