Karen Boehler
NMMI Sports Press
Colt golf coach Crae Fields minces no words when talking about his varsity team this year.
They are very good.
“From an individual basis, but also from a team perspective, we’re stacked,” he said. “We have to throw out one score, and the one we have to throw out is going to change back and forth, whereas in the past, we knew the one we were going to be throwing out. We’re really deep this year, and diverse, and my team has a more even keeled attitude than I’ve ever experienced in my 10 years of coaching. And in golf, that’s ultimately what wins out.”
Fields said they’re so even that until he absolutely has to, he’s not going to pick a lineup. The five players on the squad — sophomore Mauricio Alvarez; juniors Sergio Amieiro; Gonzalo Campillo; and Jaime Corella, all from Mexico; and senior Pongthong Thangyai, from Thailand — will battle against each other for tournament seedings.
“To me, they’re not personality-less, but they’re nameless to a certain extent and let’s talk with our clubs. Let’s see what our clubs say,” the coach said.
The Colts are in a A-AAAA district that includes Dexter, East Mountain, Jal, Portales and Ruidoso. Last year, with only 2016 golfers Thangyai — who won the individual district title — and Corella competing, NMMI easily won the team title, and Fields thinks they’ll do so again.
Then there’s the state tournament, which this year will be played in NMMI’s back yard at the Nancy Lopez Golf Course at Spring River. While not their home course, the Colts compete regularly at the nearby links, which is a plus. Then, there’s the fact they won’t have to travel, but even more so, Fields said, is that they’ll be able to stay home to concentrate on their studies and still compete.
“What is stressful for them is that the state tournament is always knee-deep in the middle of when they have finals,” he said. “So their prep for finals is always in some way, shape or form impacted, usually negatively, by the state tournament. And this is the first year in my 10 years it’s been here. So I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. I can only speculate. But if I am speculating, then I would say the less stress with regard to scholastic activities will be a good asset for us.”
As to who might be the biggest competition come state, Hope Christian, which has won the tourney four years running, is clearly the team to beat.
“They’re country club based (Tanoan), and what they get to do is go to private school and get to play at the country club,” Fields said. “Chances are they’ve been privileged enough with the opportunity to play golf for their whole lives. And they don’t have the stress of a military school.”
The Huskies do return four of the five players from last year’s championship team, including three-year individual title holder Sean Carlon, but the Institute coach wants to play against the best.
“These guys are strong. These guys are good,” he said. “If we do lose, we don’t want to lose to anybody else playing bad. We want to lose to somebody who’s playing their best. So we’ll see how all that works out.”
NMMI opens its season with a junior varsity tournament Friday at the NMMI golf course, then hosts the varsity Alien 8 tourney March 24. After that it’s spring break, then a grueling six weeks with tournaments once or twice a week until the state tourney May 9-10. And with a number of tournaments right here in Roswell, Fields said fans will get a chance to see some top-flight golf.
“I think that there’s definitely going to be some good golf played this season,” he said.
2016 Colt JV golf team
