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By: Collin Frazier
@Collin_53
With the fall season nearly over, The Lady Oilers golf team hope to add to their already stellar season. Currently, they are ranked sixth in the latest DII Women’s poll. Even with being ranked that high, head coach Dominic Guarnieri doesn’t care. He just wants to make sure that the
“Our main focus is to get better every day,” said Guarnieri. “We don’t really focus on it [being ranked 6th in the nation] on that much. It’s obviously good for the people on the outside looking in, but as far as what our team is looking at, we really don’t focus on where we’re ranked. At the end of the day, it doesn’t mean much until we get into post season play.”
With the fall season in full swing, a concern for golfers is when they plateau or peak too early. Guarnieri makes sure that the women’s team climbs over this obstacle of steadiness.
“Each week, we sit down and have individual meetings after tournaments and we [the team] go over some in-depth stats about how we’re gonna improve [from] one week to the next,” Guarnieri said. “We always look at our long-term destinations. In golf, when they’re playing in the summer, it’s all individualized. But, when you have a team behind you, it’s a lot easier to progress and keep moving forward towards a greater good.”
With the weather starting to cool down, that also becomes an obstacle for the team. While not a major concern for the team, Guarnieri does coach up the freshmen about adapting to different weather.
“The biggest thing is getting the Freshmen adjusted [to the weather],” Guarnieri stated. “All of the other players are used to it. This is kind of normal for fall. It’s usually really nice, and then you get into the last couple of tournaments and it can get a little bit colder. But, it’s not really that big of an adjustment. Most of these kids coming out of high school, they played well into late October in their high school season, so the biggest adjustment is what comes in the spring because a lot of the kids aren’t used to competing in the spring.”
With the season nearly completed, Guarnieri talks about how the Women’s team will finish strong.
“[We’re planning on] taking it one game at a time,” said Guarnieri. “We treat every tournament with the same importance. Our goal is to get better and closer every day and that puts everything into perspective and makes it a lot easier to continue where we’re going. With the success, they individually and as a team want to keep that up.”
With only two tournaments left in their fall schedule, Guarnieri and the rest of the team hope to finish strong going into their seasonal break.
