Northgate girls added some impressive statistics to their long record of excellence. The varsity team finished 8-0 this year, marking 6 undefeated seasons in the last ten years. To learn more about how their team works and how they have managed to achieve this, The Sentinel interviewed senior players AJ Esver, Elizabeth Meyer, and 10-year Coach Ron Otero.
“We worked really hard individually and as a team,” said Elizabeth Meyer, a senior and a co-captain with senior Armani Stark. “We were undefeated in League, we won DAL, and we placed 4th at NSC,” she said.
Meyer said the team pulled together individually and collectively. “As a team we learned how to work hard and overcome the competition. Even when there was not much competition, we worked to grow our strengths.”
Senior AJ Esver played for all of her four years and recalls how the team members were very friendly to her as a new player her freshman year. “They were so welcoming, they were all really nice. I really made connections with each of them because our group was really small,” she said.
Esver recalls how the team grew during her years, and she enjoyed getting to know the underclassmen. She mentions that her sophomore and junior year were very entertaining. “They made us social media accounts and we made TikToks together, we posted a lot, so we were able to get our name out there,” she explained. During her senior year she mentions that her biggest challenge was balancing her time. “I’m in so many other things, and balancing between those extracurriculars and this was really hard,” she said.
Coach Ron Otero has been with the team ten years and said he was pleased with this year. “The girls definitely have a different level of commitment and focus. They don’t just play during the season, they pretty much grind it out year round,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest difference between our team versus another team. The girls take it a lot more seriously than the schools we’re going up against.”
Otero has been coaching girls and boys golf for over a decade and says that there is a lot of dedication and a lot of work that goes into the sport. “We’re in the toughest league, we play the toughest teams,” he added. Otero focuses on building relationships with the girls he coaches, meeting some of them as early as sixth grade. He says that he has had a great time coaching for the past ten years although it is a lot of work. “Emotionally, there’s a lot that goes into it. There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, everyone’s doing work.”
Otero said his favorite highlights from coaching is always senior day. “It’s very emotional. These are girls that I’ve known since middle school, or even before that time, and to have them go through so many years with me-it’s a very emotional day when the seniors leave.”
The team has come in fifth place three times during North Coast, the 23-team state final, and this year they were fourth place. “NCS didn’t really go how we wanted it to end,” but they were still undefeated and happy to leave the team with that.
