Boys’ Golf Preview: St. Francis readies for Mission League gauntlet

Since taking over the St. Francis High golf team in 2013, coach Kyle Ostrom has continued to elevate the Golden Knights in the Mission League.

It’s certainly not easy traditional powers such as Loyola and Harvard-Westlake, yet Ostrom has seen St. Francis hold its own and consistently qualify for the playoffs.

Ostrom, a former All-Area Boys’ Golf Coach of the Year, will look to guide the Golden Knights to another top-four finish in arguably one of the most difficult leagues in the state and a return trip to the CIF Southern Section playoffs.

“We expect to be right there in league and we think we have a shot at getting back to CIF,” said Ostrom, whose team took fourth in league and eighth in the CIF Southern Section Central Team Divisional. “You always know going in, the Mission League will be hard and a lot of the teams have continued to improve.

“It will be a little bit of a rebuilding year, but I think we’ll be fine. We’ll try to rotate some of the players in the lineup. It will be about who will be able to take that next step along the way.”

St. Francis saw Tommy Altmayer, the reigning All-Area Boys’ Golfer of the Year, graduate. Altmayer took ninth in the league’s individual tournament and was the only area player to reach the CIF Southern Section Individual Golf Finals and Southern California Golf Assn. Regional Qualifying Tournament in 2016.

Still, the Golden Knights are hardly void of talent.

St. Francis will return seniors Stian Lintvedt, Aidan Tracey and David Emeron and will bring in freshman Henry Fitzhugh.

“Stian has had a lot of success,” Ostrom said. “I look for him to keep improving and I’m very optimistic that he’ll be even better this year.”

Crescenta Valley expects to be in the mix in the Pacific League under second-year coach Mark Samford. Last season, the Falcons took third in league and stepped up in the postseason to the tune of a 10th-place finish in the CIF Southern Section Northern Team Divisional.

Samford said expectations will remain the same for the Falcons, who lost All-Area honoree AJ Roa to graduation.

“I think we’ll be OK,” Samford said. “We don’t have that high-caliber player like we’ve had in the past with AJ or Cody Renfro, but we’ll put six people out there who are capable of doing the job and getting some good scores.

“We’ll have a steady team. We have a group that’s capable of shooting 80 or under on a good day.”

Crescenta Valley will bring back Trey Ballard, who will be joined by senior Ian Galloway, junior Peter Kim and sophomore Andrew Hong.

Coach Bob Loughrie will begin his 31st season at Flintridge Prep.

The Rebels tied for second place with Buckley in the Prep League behind rival Pasadena Poly last season. The Rebels saw Jonah Sacks earn an All-Area nod after winning a second straight league individual championship before graduating.

“We’ll have a lot of options throughout the lineup because we’ll have plenty of depth,” Loughrie said. “We’ll have a very good nucleus and I’m optimistic we can make a run at the league championship.

“We’ve got right around 18 matches this year. You can only control what you can do.”

Among those expected to compete for spots in the lineup are seniors Cameron Wu, Matthew Choi, Justin Yu and Brendan Barton and sophomores Ben Sacks, Preston Ho and Kailyn Chiu.

Glendale will likely be rebuilding following the departure of standout Russell Caletena, a former All-Area honoree who graduated.

The Nitros took fifth in the Pacific League last season under coach Anthony Mohr.

Glendale will have just five players this season, just enough to field a lineup.

Glendale’s lineup will consist of seniors Miguel Carino and Jared Smith, juniors Elison Alaan and Joshue Kerr and freshman Chris Aghajanian.

“We only have five players, but we’ll see if we can pick up a few more along the way,” Mohr said. “We only have three players with any kind of experience.

“We’ll hope to get at least two players to the league’s individual tournament. In the meantime, it’s just about seeing each player in our group make improvement.”

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Charles Rich, charles.rich@latimes.com

Twitter: @TCNCharlesRich