This past week, the University of Dallas men’s golf team won fifth place at the SCAC Championship games, hosted by Schreiner University in southeast Kerrville, Texas. Although the results could have been better for UD, the team isn’t too let down.
Rex Souillere, a sophomore business major, is a student athlete on the men’s golf team here at UD. Before competing in the tournament, Souillere had some expectations on the pressure that he and the team were going to face this year.
“A big thing for us is trying to figure out how to all post good scores in one round,” Souillere said. “That was a big thing playing together and then, individually, I was trying to get back to being on the SCAC All-Conference team for a second year in a row.”
The biggest factor going into the game was getting good shots for the whole team; the team was discouraged by their performance on the second round of day one.
Despite that round, the team continued to push through and show off their potential of picking themselves back up.
“Round one of day two we actually tied for best scores of that day,” Souillere shared. “So it goes to show that we were definitely capable of doing a little better than we did.”
Karsten Paciotti, a sophomore business major, is also a student athlete who played at that tournament. Paciotti was proud on the overall performance in rounds despite that round one kicked off well and round two was a letdown.
“But overall, two out of three rounds? We really competed and showed that we’re just as good as any of the schools there,” Paciotti said.
The first and last that the UD men’s golf team won or even placed in a tournament was back in 2019. According to Souillere, this was a huge morale boost for the team especially since both the men’s and women’s team are a total of ten players. They all celebrated their placement after the tournament together as a team.
“I think we came a little short of our goals for the whole season, but we did win one tournament this year,” Paciotti shared. “We had a good outing for how little people we have on this team and just how short staffed we are.”
This tournament’s shining moments give both Souillere and Paciotti a lot of hope for their next season.
“We’re definitely going to have to take more of a role as leaders, especially with our seniors being gone,” Paciotti said.
Souillere believes that a team’s performance comes down to figuring out the team’s identity as early in the season as possible. He plans to incorporate that identity for the team next year through better communication or spending more time together as a team.
