What is happening with Claremont High School sports? The football team is undefeated, boys water polo is ranked number-one, cross country is on a tear and now girls golf is having their best season ever.

The girls, 7-6 overall, added another victory on Tuesday, narrowly defeating visiting Ayala, 214-217, at Marshall Canyon Golf Course. In the process, the Pack set a new low score for their home course.

Allison Gallegos led the charge with 40 strokes on the 36 par nine-hole course. Not far behind was Vanessa Lopez at 41, Maryn Santiago at 42 and Sally Wang at 44. Rounding out the team’s score was Ivana Kovac at 47 and Juliana Gomez at 51.

Top Ayala performances came from Kelly Lee at 41 and Anisha Choi at 43.

Claremont’s changing fortunes are partly the result of Gallegos, who has become the top-seeded player although she is just a junior.

While some fall sports are in their second week of league play, golf is almost done with its season because it must finish before the end of daylight savings time. As a result, the season starts just after Labor Day and proceeds at a torrid pace so that the Pack can play each of the seven other teams in the league.

“We have the best team we’ve ever had,” said Coach Octavio Hernandez as his team was getting ready for the Ayala match. “I’m really proud of them. They worked hard on the off-season. We played some teams that had great number-one players but we’ve been solid all across the board—like the tournament we played yesterday, everyone was within 10 strokes.”

As they go into their final match of the season against Chino Hills on Thursday the Pack is tied for third and headed to the CIF tournament for the first time in the team’s history.

With no seniors and an up-and-coming freshman in Wang, next season promises to be strong as well.

Next week, the rapid pace continues with Palomares League prelims at Los Serranos Country Club in Chino Hills, followed by league finals at Western Hills. The team returns to Los Serranos the following week for CIF.

CROSS?COUNTRY

On Saturday the boys and girls cross country teams traveled to Clovis for the ASICS Clovis Invitational. Among more than 4,300 high school runners, the girls team finished fourth and the boys team finished 13th.

BOYS?WATER?POLO

Boys water polo continues to dominate the Palomares League with a 20-4 victory over Diamond Bar on Tuesday. There were no individual stats.

GIRLS WATERPOLO

The Claremont High School girls varsity volleyball team won a close league match against visiting Ayala 3-1 (25-21, 25-21, 16-25, 25-14) on Tuesday in Claremont. Junior Jordan Bishop had 12 kills for a kill percentage of 31 percent. Other top performances came from Breanna Carasik with six kills, Fallon Vrieling with four and Alana Washington with three. Vrieling also had three solo blocks and one block assist.

SAHS?VOLLEYBALL

San Antonio High School volleyball had their first game on October 8 against Pomona Park West. The Lions lost the series two games to three, however, it was an exciting first match that proved the competition would be fierce. The MVP of the game is Elijah Black, who stood out among the Lions for his commitment to getting to every ball and keeping the team in the game.  San Antonio will play Park West again on October 15. This is the first year that San Antonio has played volleyball and they have a coed team of 12 girls and three boys.

—Steven Felschundneff

steven@claremont-courier.com