by Damien Alarcon
Staff Writer
If hard work and solid dedication were the only factors necessary to be the best, then the University of La Verne golf team would be without a doubt be the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Champion.
Unfortunately it is not.
Inconsistency plagued the team last weekend when it traveled to Torrey Pines for the 50th Annual Southern California Intercollegiate Golf Championship in La Jolla. The tournament was hosted by UC San Diego.
“The first day out [Friday], we did not play well. If you are not hitting the ball well, it is really going to take its toll on that course,” said head coach Rex Huigens. “The second day we came out and played kind of average. It is kind of what I expected, nothing great, but nothing bad.”
Huigens said that Torrey Pines was an extremely difficult course and the team had a rough time overcoming its layout.
“It was good for us to go down and challenge ourselves with that kind of a course,” he said.
The Leopards finished tied for 18th place with Chapman University. There were a total of 20 teams in the tournament. The tournament consisted of two divisions, with 10 teams in each pool.
After the first day of the tournament, the best scorer in La Verne’s division shot a 78. Huigens said on any other given course for those same players, they would have earned around 72 or 73.
La Verne took ninth in its division, while the UC San Diego A and B teams placed first and second in the division, respectively. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro was the overall winner.
Freshman Mario DiCarlo had the best score for the Leopards, as he placed 36th in the individual scores with a 163.
“We constantly played bad except for Mario DiCarlo,” said Huigens. “Mario had a pretty good tournament.”
The Leopards’ next match is on Monday as they enter another tournament, the Kingsmen Invitational at the Wood Ranch Country Club. On Thursday, the Leopards will travel back to Thousand Oaks and take on Cal Lu in SCIAC play.
Sophomore Justin Poore said, “We have had a number of positive scores lately. We are going to do well the next couple of weeks.”
Huigens said, “What I like about this team is they work really hard. They go hit some balls at night. It is not like they are just sitting back and are happy about their shooting.”
