School is back in session, and the Jesuit golf team is back on the course!
After school on Monday-Thursday, August 26-29, the first week of school, Coach Cathy Marino held tryouts for the 2013-2014 Jesuit golf team!
First, hopeful freshmen faced a driving range evaluation where they were informed whether they had qualified to compete at the four-day course tryout.
Each day, these 9-hole stroke play tryouts took place at a different course from 4 to 7 PM. All players, regardless of skill level or previous placements, tried out at the same time in groups. On Monday, the candidates played at Brookhaven Country Club’s “Masters'” course, followed by Course #1 at Richardson’s Sherill Park Golf Course on Tuesday. The Wednesday rounds occurred at Course #2 in Sherill Park before the final round on Thursday on Brookhaven’s Champions’ Course. Throughout the rounds, Coach Marino drove around and evaluated players she had not previously had the chance to see play.
According to Patrick Tehan ’15, tryouts were “extremely hot” and the heat “forced [him] to drink more water and focus just a bit more.” Meanwhile, Sam Rosenberg ’14 classified the weather as “good…but windy, so [he] had to really focus on controlling [his] ball flight.” A few players also noted that the greens were running faster than usual, but the weather was not overwhelmingly extreme.
Bobby Lovin ’14 called tryouts a “pretty grueling process” especially with “only 10 minutes warm up,” but insisted that “it’s worth it in the end.”
Cuts are based on a variety of factors, including the scores players shot over the summer, tryout scores, and previous histories on the team. Students who earned a spot were placed on either Junior Varsity (JV) or Varsity on the roster, which was posted at the front desk on Friday afternoon, where players could come by and view the results.
Judging by the players who made it, Mac Corbin ’14 predicted that “[Jesuit] should have a solid team this year.”
This year, there was an addition of a new assistant coach to Jesuit’s staff, Alumni Service Corps member Kyle “Bags” Baginski, who played varsity at Jesuit for three years until 2005 before attending the University of Oklahoma. He teaches Chemistry to Jesuit sophomores and will help Coach Marino out this season with the golf team.
Lovin, excited about the newest member of the Jesuit golf staff, emphasized that Baginski is a “cool guy . . . more like an organizer than a coach! Honestly I like having him around our team because even though he’s a teacher, he’s also just been through college which means we can relate to him more than to an older guy.”
A lot of guys came out for tryouts. Rosenberg estimated that “about forty” showed up and said that he thinks Coach Marino “took twenty-five” of those forty for the roster. He also noted that oddly “not as many freshmen as previous years” tried out, though Lovin added that the number of them was still “a lot.”
Even though not as many freshmen tried out this year as in past years, there is definitely some deep talent in the group that did. Senior Lovin extolled two of them, Martin Breedijk ’17 and David Seagram ’17, commenting that “Martin is a very good player who recently made varsity with us! And David is one of the top spots on JV, and I think both of them will be big impact players on our team in the future.”
Overall, Rosenberg explained, “I feel great about this year’s team. We lost a lot of great players from the class of 2013, but it looks like everyone really improved this summer, which has not been true every year. Our goal and my goal is to stay confident, stay positive, stay in the present, and focus on what we can control. If we do that, we will do very well.”
Hopefully, Rosenberg’s goals will be realized! Golf practice just began this past Tuesday, September 3rd, and the team looks forward to yet another strong season of Ranger golf. Stay tuned for more golf news as the first few matches of the season begin.
