On Wednesday, September 24th, the Jesuit Golf team dominated the Richardson Invitational Tournament played at the Waterview Golf Club in Rowlett. Shooting a combined team score of 313, the Varsity team ran away with the tournament, the Gold and Blue teams winning first and third place honors impressively.
The tournament featured three Junior Varsity and six Varsity golfers, the Jesuit team attempting to ensure every member of the squad receives early-season tournament experience. For these nine golfers, the result of the Invitational was certainly impressive, considering that the Richardson tournament was all of the golfers’ first tournament of the year, Coach Cathy Marino explained. “I think everyone did a good job. It was great to win the tournament and shoot a solid team score of 313,” she remarked about her team’s exceptional performance.
Junior Ross Frick, an experienced Varsity golfer, shot an excellent round of 74 to earn third place individually in the tournament and propel the Gold team to victory. When asked about this achievement, Frick, a true team player, responded by saying that he was “happy with the way [he] played,” but even more “ecstatic that our team got first place overall.” He noted that the variety in practice really assisted him in shooting such a low score: “During some days we visit the range during which our team practices and hones our skills, and other days we play qualifiers which really bring out the competition and simulate tournament rounds.”
Frick humbly praised the efforts of his other teammates, commending seniors Patrick Tehan and Austin Holtz, regarding them as “standouts” who “all shot rounds in the seventies to help the team place first.” Tehan shot a 78 and Holtz shot a 79 to contribute to the Gold team’s victory. Juniors Chase Fetrow and Bryan Garner also shot decent rounds for the Gold team. “We all have the capability to shoot low rounds on any given day,” Frick mentioned in describing these players’ performances.
Holtz cited perseverance and focus as contributing factors to his successful round, saying, “Although I struggled on the first nine, I was able to improve in all aspects of my game and shoot lower on the back nine for a 79.”
Not far behind Holtz and his fellow Gold golfers was the Blue team, who met expectations by earning third place in the Invitational with a score of 318, just 5 strokes behind their first place teammates. Junior Sean Dougherty led the way for the Blue team, shooting a respectable 76 to ensure a top three finish. Adding on to Dougherty’s low score to influence Blue’s third place finish in the Invitational were junior Grant Frye and sophomores CJ Moucka and David Seagram.
Coach Marino, impressed by the sheer talent of this year’s youthful squad, applauded their torrential kickoff to the fall season, exclaiming, “We are off to a good start with two rounds in the 60’s and quite a few rounds in the 70’s. With nine freshmen on the team we are a young team who looks to continue to improve on this good start.”
Similarly, Holtz reiterated this point, attributing the team’s tournament successes to the skill and passion of its young members: “A lot of new players this year have already proven themselves in tournaments to be strong players that can make a big contribution to our team,” he acclaimed. “I feel very excited for this season especially after seeing how well many of us have performed in the first tournaments.”
On a separate note, this past Wednesday, the team opened their annual Jesuit Ryder Cup at Brookhaven Golf Course, an inter-squad competition in which the Jesuit golfers are split up into two opposing teams, the seniors acting as captains of these teams. It is modeled after the Ryder Cup, a golf tournament between the United States and Europe, in which the golfers go head to head in individual stroke-play matches. After the completion of the first round, the Gold team is leading the Navy team 7.5 to 4.5. The rest of the tournament will be played within the next coming weeks, with the Navy team looking to improve upon their first round performance to jump the Gold and take all the bragging rights.
But as for now, all friendly competition aside, Marino said the team is “in the process of qualifying for [their] next Varsity and JV tournaments.” Look for the Rangers to build upon their recent success in their next tournament on the weekend of October 10th at Texas High in Texarkana.
