Freshman Danielson shows consistency as Nicholls concludes golf season in SLC tourney

The Southland Conference Championship held Monday through Wednesday at the Comanche Trace Golf Club in Kerrville, Texas, went pretty much as expected.

Augusta University, boasting three of the top five finishers in the tournament, ran away from the field. Nicholls, featuring a squad that included four freshmen, a sophomore, and a junior college transfer in his first year in the program, finished ninth out of 10 teams.

Everyone else was somewhere in between.

The highlight for Nicholls was the play of freshman Tommy Danielson. He had consistent rounds of 74, 73, and 75 to finish with a 222 total at +6. That was good enough for a tie for 15th.

“He’s come light years from where he was in the fall when he wasn’t even hardly playing to go get a Top 20,” Nicholls coach James Schilling said. “He came in as my four seed. I had him as my number four. Tommy continues to get better. Some of my other guys didn’t have the greatest tournament, and that’s OK.”

Jack Moro was second for Nicholls behind Danielson. A fellow freshman, Moro shot rounds of 78, 76, and 78 for a 232 total at +16, finishing in a tie for 35th.

Chase Pochylko, yet another freshman, had rounds of 87, 74 and 82 to finish with a 243 total at +27, finishing in a tie for 44th in the 50-member field.

Unlike regular-season tournaments with a team of five golfers, the conference championship allowed for six golfers. Teams played five golfers at a time, but the sixth member could be substituted in or out of the lineup following the first round.

As a result, Danielson, Moro, and Pochylko played all three rounds, while the three other Colonel golfers each participated in two rounds.

Freshman Dylan Weber played the first two rounds, shooing a 78 and an 82. Sophomore Zach Morvant played in rounds two and three, shooting 81 and 79. Diego Prat Cruza played in rounds one and three. The junior college transfer shot 80 and 82 in his two rounds.

The different format was one of several new lessons for the young golfers, according to Schilling.

“They’re not accustomed to ever being benched or pulled out,” the Nicholls coach said. “I actually like this format because it gives you a chance to give more guys more action, but it also requires a coach to really cover a lot of area and watch them and really pay attention to what they’re doing.

“I wish more tournaments did it this way because there’s a huge difference when you’re playing as an individual as a sixth person versus being in the top five. You just don’t have the pressure.”

Augusta’s Cole Stevens was the individual champion with rounds of 68, 67, 75 for a 210 total at -6.

His teammate, Stefan Jacobs shot rounds of 71, 69, 71 for a 211 at -5 to finish second.

Francis Marion’s Mitchell Vance finished third after rounds of 71, 70, 72 for a 213 total at -3.

Carl Hardin of Lamar placed fourth with rounds of 72, 68, 76 for a 216 total at even par.

Ryan Fulton of the University of New Orleans and Augusta’s Dawson Booth finished in a tie for fifth with totals of 217 at +1. Fulton had rounds of 74, 73, and 70, while Booth shot 74, 69, and 74.

In team competition, Augusta had rounds of 288, 175, and 292 for an 855 total at -9.

Lamar was a distant second at +9 after rounds of 286, 297, and 300 for an 873 total at +9.

Rounding out the top five were New Orleans (292, 292, 291) +11; Houston Christian (290, 291, 302) +19; and Francis Marion (303, 294, 296) +29.

Augusta and Francis Marion are affiliate members in the SLC.

Nicholls shot rounds of 310, 304, and 314 for a 928 at +64, one shot ahead of Texas A&M-Commerce.

“You’ve got a program that’s funded systematically different than a lot of us other programs, including the Texas schools,” Schilling said of Augusta. “They just fund things totally different there. I think that’s their only Division I sport, so I don’t even know how they’re able to do that.

They dominated on the women’s side and on the men’s side.”

Comanche Trace, a 7253, par-72 course, proved the be another lesson for the young Colonel golfers.

“It was an excellent golf course,” Schilling said. “It was set up extremely well in the fact that it was set up to separate the field with the best teams and the deeper teams, especially those who had older players really benefited from that. I think you saw even teams like Southeastern that beat us pretty good Koasati Pines, they struggled a bit because they have a young team.

“The teams that are deeper and have a deeper roster one through five, or even one through six, because you can bring six players, that’s who really benefits. It’s very similar to a regional setup. When I went to regionals last, it was very similar to that.”

It was the type of course, Schilling said, that makes a golfer may for his mistakes.

“You start hitting the ball offline, it’s just it’s tough. That’s a championship (golf course). It’s a great golf course. It’s a great test. The best team won. The best individuals won,” said Schilling.

The collegiate golf year is a long one with fall and spring seasons. It was a trying one for the Colonels in 2023-24.

“In the fall, I thought we really underachieved,” Schilling said. “I was quite surprised with some of the scores that we were shooting. I didn’t really understand it because I wasn’t really seeing that when we’re practicing and qualifying. From what I expected to what we did in the fall, I was disappointed.”

Although inconsistent, the young team showed signs of improvement in the spring.

“The spring compared to the fall, it’s better. They could do it in bits and pieces, but they couldn’t hold it together,” Schilling said. “On a hard golf course when you miss it a shot, it’s going to punish you – and it’s not going to be a bogey. It could be a nine or an eight. It could be something big. You can’t recover from that.

“I think we’re about on schedule for what I thought we would be because I was disappointed in how we played in the fall. We had poor finishes. We were more competitive in the spring.”