For the second straight year, Kelsey Conway and her La Reina High teammates are the only team from Ventura County to advance to the CIF-Southern Section Girls' Golf Finals.

Conway fired a team-low 79 on a difficult scoring day at River Ridge Golf Course, helping the Regents finish with a team score of 438 at Monday's 2007 Girls' Golf Northern Team Divisionals, earning them the fourth and final spot in next week's finals by just three strokes over fifth-place Valencia.

The finals will be Nov. 5 at Dove Canyon Country Club in Orange County.

Perennial power Dos Pueblos won the event with a 402. Diamond Bar was second at 420 and Hart third at 421.

"This is more exciting than last year," said Conway, who was disappointed with her round, but thrilled with the performances of her teammates. "It was a team effort today. We needed everyone to play well, and everyone did."

Before the tournament, La Reina coach Bob Sisco told his players if they could post six scores under triple digits, he felt they had a good chance to advance.

Following their coach's plea, all six La Reina players posted went under 100.

They included Conway's 79, Kristina Cheung's 80, Christina Sinner's 88, Brenna Callero's 95, McKenna Cox's 96 and Morgan Mosbey's 98.

"Kelsey and Kristina always play well; the key today was the bottom four girls doing what they did," said Sisco. "Christina Sinner has been building up steadily. Today, she told me she was going to shoot in the 80s, and she did.

"Brenna is a freshman and this was her first time under this kind of pressure and she handled it well. And McKenna just competes. She has so much heart."

Callero called her first playoff round intense.

Conway and Cheung said the greens were extremely fast when the day started and got even faster as the wind picked up. But they found a way to make just enough putts to put themselves back in the finals.

"We're excited," Cheung said. "If we can all cut just three strokes off our score, we can do so much better at the finals. We all know we can play better."

For the second straight season, Westlake coach Dave Costley left River Ridge disappointed by the outcome.

Costley's Westlake team has been the one of the best in the county all season, scoring in the 190s for nine holes in several matches. But on Monday, the Warriors lineup struggled from top to bottom, finishing with a disappointing 464.

"When I saw the scores from our top three players come in, I knew we were in trouble," Costley said. "In a one-day event, anything can happen, and unfortunately for us, we just didn't play that well.

"I told the girls on the way here if we could play like we did on Friday (at the Marmonte League finals) we would be in good shape. But we just didn't have it today. Our best score was 88 and that just won't get it done."

With three of its four top players seniors, Dos Pueblos coach Rob Shiff was confident his team's experience would help them get around the challenging River Ridge course.

He was right, as three seniors posted scores in the low 80s while the other, Julia Williams, led the team with a 77.

"It's really nice having so many seniors," Shiff said.

Oaks Christian coach Tim Meinert saw his team improve by 50 strokes over last year's performance in the regional. Unfortunately, the Lions' total of 485 wasn't near what the coach was hoping his team would post.

"We've been shooting 220 to 230 during the season, so I was hoping we would be around 460," Meinert said. "But this is a different level of pressure and learning to deal with that is what this is all about. We improved and that's really good, but we're disappointed with how we played."