Coming off an extremely successful 2023-24 campaign the NCC men’s golf team continue to improve. The season was filled with incredible performances and broken records. The team now looks towards the spring season with their heads held high.
Looking back
The 2023-24 season saw the Cardinals reach heights that they haven’t ever experienced. The team was looking to further improve their results. They would have a new coach guiding them in Rachel Gray, who brings plenty of championship experience to the team as both a player and a coach. Most of the team from last season would be returning including Mitchell Mazzei, ‘27, Zachary Lunde, ‘25 and Brendan Joy, ‘26.
“I think the best thing that I learned from my first year that really helped in my second was regarding comfort,” Mazzei said, describing what he learned last year. “That first year really teed me up (pun not intended) to be very comfortable this year with handling those pressures and I think it helped lead to a good fall season.”
New heights
With this newfound confidence, the team would go into the fall season with high expectations. It is safe to say that they did not disappoint. The first highlight would come at the Highland Championship where the team would shatter the 18-hole record. The record stood since 2013. The team destroyed this record with a score of 284. This made them the first Cardinal team ever to finish a round below par. The team would also smash the 36-hole mark with a score of 575. This is 23 points lower than the previous record of 598.
Mazzei won the individual championship, establishling two program records with a second-round score of 65. Thus surpassing the previous program record of 67, set by Sergio Ronchel Salas back on Apr. 9, 2022. With a 36-hole score of 135, Mazzei beat the Cardinals’ previous standard of 143, set all the way back in 2016 by Lincoln Slagel. Mazzei would eventually become the first Cardinal since Rochel Salas to become CCIW Golfer of the Week with his performance at the Carthage College Firebird Fall Invite.
The fun would not end there as the team would go on to win the Butts Classic in Decatur, their first tournament win since March 19, 2019, when they won the Benedictine Florida Quad. The Cardinals had three golfers in the top 10 with Mazzei finishing first, Lunde finishing fifth and Joy finishing seventh.
“The number one thing that has been cool about being an upperclassman has been seeing the growth of the team,” Lunde said looking back at his time on the team. “Throughout the years we have gotten exponentially better through a variety of different ways.”
The Cardinals would wrap up their season at the Wabash Fall Invitational which saw Mazzei break his own 54-hole record with a score of 217 as the Cardinals would place ninth.
“Being able to set a 54-hole record is really fantastic and lots of fun,” Mazzei said. “What I have taken away from that tournament is that I don’t even look at it as the best I played this season.”
Looking ahead
The team will be on hiatus until the spring where they will look to continue their improvement. The Cards will be looking for their first CCIW team title since 1967, when they shared the title with Millikin.
“This fall season was definitely the most exciting season that I have been a part of with this team,” Lunde says looking back. “We have a lot of goals we want to accomplish in the Spring, but knowing our team, we will not have a problem with keeping the motivation levels at a high throughout the offseason.”
Mazzei will also be looking to be the first Cardinal to win a medal at the CCIW tournament since Bill Smith in 1981. Yet, the mindset of constantly improving has not changed for him, nor the team. This mindset and momentum has set the men’s golf team up to make a statement in the spring season.
“I know that there is still plenty of room to improve upon this fall,” Mazzei says. “This motivates to keep going into the spring.”
