Spring preview: With wealth of experience NVC men’s golf looking for success in 2019
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Experience always helps, especially in a sport like golf.
The Napa Valley College golf team will have a wealth of experience when they play in their first event on February 11th.
The Storm have a total of five returners on their seven-man roster. The returners are Brandon Alemania, Kyle Dozier, Frank Gawronski, Robby Hess, and Steven Plate.
“We have five sophomores on our roster, and they all competed last year in our matches,” Napa Valley College coach Bob Freschi said during an interview on January 31st. “We feel like we have nice depth.”
New to the team this year is freshman Mason Adams and Ryan Chamblee. Both bring good attributes to the squad. To view the full roster go here.
“They both earned spots from our fall program, and they earned where they’re at,” Freschi explained of the two freshman. “Ryan is a study player. He’s consistent with his games, so he doesn’t go real low and he doesn’t go real high. He’s a good five, six man in our rotation just because almost everybody has a blowup round to have depth and if he can go mid-80s, that just gives us more depth when our top five guys has a blow up round and their scoring average in 80 and they shoot an 89 that day, that’s where Ryan comes into play. Mason is a very talented freshman. He’s from Nevada. He loves it down here. He loves our program. He’s really thriving in our program. I think he has potential to be in our top three. He really strikes the ball pure. He has a great attitude, and he’s very competitive as well. We’re looking for him to be in our lineup, and what I mean by our lineup is in the top six and produce every match. He has talent, he just needs to put it all together, and he’s still learning California style courses, and also it’s a little different altitude here than what he’s use to in Nevada. So, he’s still learning his distances and how to play the game down here, but he has skill and he’s come a long way in our fall program and hopefully he continues to improve and get stronger as the season progresses.”
Three of the five returners also made it to the California Community College Athletic Association Northern California tournament last year. The returners who made it to NorCal’s last spring were Dozier, Gawronski, and Hess.
There’s also a bit more motivation going for the Storm this year, as the CCCAA state championship tournament will be held at Silverado Resort and Spa’s 72-par, 7,203-yard North Course, which is where the Safeway Open was played earlier in the school year. The tournament will take place on May 13th.
It would mean a lot for NVC to be represented as a team or individually in the state tournament that’s in their own backyard.
“That’s our main goal to get to states,” Freschi explained of trying to get to the State match. “We talked about it. We’re hosting it. I am the president of the California Community College Northern California Association, so I’m your state host for the state championship, and our college is hosting it. Jerry Dunlap (AD) is a huge part of being our host too, and we welcome the state championships to Silverado. We want to qualify as a team. You’ve got to earn it, you’ve got to put in the time, and if you’ve got a commitment, then it comes down to execution, and you’ve got to post low scores when it counts, and that’s what we’re striving to do each and every day.”
The Storm will host two Big 8 Conference tournaments, both of which will take place at Chardonnay Golf Club. The first event will take place on Wednesday, February 27th. The other event will be on Wednesday, March 13th.
“The facility and the course at Chardonnay is phenomenal, so to have a college match and to have other teams come in and play in the vineyard is pretty special,” Freschi said of hosting two Big 8 events. “It doesn’t beat playing in the vineyards and in the Napa Valley. It’s our home course, we know our home course pretty well, and it’s just a matter of executing on match day to win it, and you always want to do well on your home course.”
Napa Valley will also play in two tough preseason matches. On February 11th they’ll begin the season at the Woodland Invitational, and on April 29th they’ll play in the Stockton Invitational. To view the full schedule go here. The Woodland Invitational is an important tournament for NVC because that’s where the CCCAA Northern California tournament will take place later in the season.
“We hop right into Big 8 conference matches after one preview tournament, so we’re opening up our season at Yolo Fliers Golf Club,” Freschi said of the importance of the season’s first event. “That’s where we’re having the Northern California regional playoffs, so it’s a preview tournament for that.”
