Young Nicholls golf team opens season versus tough competition at Bentwater event

An incredibly young Nicholls golf team will open up the 2024 season against some tough competition when the Colonels take part in the Bentwater Intercollegiate tournament Monday and Tuesday in Montgomery, Texas.

“The first tournament is probably one of the toughest fields we face,” said James Schilling, who is in his 26th season as Nicholls coach. “Rice is hosting the event, so you have a lot of schools that are maybe a bit larger than what we have in the Southland as far as the conference they play in and the competition that they play in.”

Along with Nicholls and host Rice, other schools slated to take part in the event include Baylor, Houston, Tarleton State, Abilene Christian, SFA, Rice, Sam Houston, Southern Illinois, Texas A&M-Commerce, Missouri State, Texas-Rio Grande Valley, Texas-Arlington, Texas-San Antonio, and Western Kentucky.

“That one will be a little bit different because you have Rice in Conference USA,” said Schilling. “They’re a little bit bigger program than what we are, so you’re going to have different teams in there. It’s a little early for us to start, but it was over Mardi Gras break. We were out of school anyway, so we take that opportunity to get some work in and not miss class, which I’m proud to say my players did an excellent job last semester. The team GPA was like 3.5 for the team.”

The teams will play 36 holes on Monday and close out with 18 on Tuesday on the Bentwater course.

“It’s a typical course, you have to keep the golf ball and play. It’s not crazy off-the-tee difficult,” said Schilling. “Conditions will determine a lot of what happens. That can be said at any golf course, though.”

A factor for success for Nicholls in the opening event is to avoid early mishaps, according to Schilling.

“A key for us will be our short game,” the Nicholls coach said. “Can we get off to a good start? Can we convert whenever we have opportunities? How do we handle adversity, tough breaks?

“We have courses that are comparable to all of the courses that we’re playing, so that will not be used as an excuse. We just have to get out there and get it done as a team.”

The team consists of freshmen Chase Pochylko, Jack Moro, Thomas Danielson, Collin Jones, and Dylan Weber. The lone sophomore is Zachary Morvant. The team has two juniors in Peyton Canter, and transfer Diego Prat Cruza.

The early tournament, Schilling said, will give him a chance to examine his team before taking part in their next event two weeks later.

“We’ll have a week before we go to English Turn in New Orleans and we’ll have some time to kind of evaluate everything,” Schilling said of the Gulf Coast Intercollegiate scheduled for February 26-27.

The next tournament for the Colonels will be the Colin Montgomery Invitational in Sugar Land, Texas, on March 4-5 and hosted by Houston Christian University.

“We’ve actually played pretty in that event,” said Schilling. “I think we finished (fourth) last year as a team. Ryan (O’Neil) finished second. We had (Braxton Kuntz) in the Top 10. Of course, it was a year ago. We have a different team now. I think we were fourth out of 15 teams last year, so that was a good finish for us.”

Nicholls will then host the Koasati Pines Intercollegiate in Kinder, La., on April 8-9.

“The way the calendar fell this year – typically, we go to Sam Houston that week and they could not host,” said Schilling. “We decided to go ahead and pick it up

“Koasati Pines is over toward Lake Charles. They do not have a golf program there (at McNeese). There are a lot of courses, and we had a connection there, so we will have about 10, 11 teams there.”

The Southland Conference Championship is slated for April 22-24 in Kerrville, Texas.

The event will be over three days with 18 holes played each round.

Nicholls is building a team for the future, but we so many young players in the here-and-now, patience will be required, according to Schilling.

“With this schedule that I have here and within the conference, we’re going have to improve,” Schilling said. “There’s no question about that. We’re going to have to have better results than what we had in the fall, consistently, again, over 54 holes.

“It takes time. It takes baby steps. I think if you look at any coach, whether it be a new coach coming in building a team, or a coach that has a lot of freshmen, which is also building a team, whether he’s been here or has it been here, it takes time, unless you go a different route with the transfer portal. I’m just not really interested in doing that.”