This Week In Rattlers Golf
Midwestern State Invitational
March 23-24 • Wichita Falls, Texas (Wichita Falls Country Club)
• The St. Mary's Men's Golf team will compete in the annual Midwestern State Invitational at the Wichita Falls Country Club on Monday and Tuesday.
• This is the 12th time the Rattlers have competed at the Midwestern State Invitational, dating back to 2011. The tournament has alternated between being held in the fall and the spring throughout the years, and the Rattlers brought home the title in 2015 when it was a fall tournament.
• The lineup for the Midwestern State Invitational will be 1) Baptiste Touchard, 2) Kongpop Kaikaew, 3) Elijah Galvan, 4) Guillaume Paquette, and 5) Philip Hallstrom. Both Zach Seader and Connor Smith will compete as individuals.
• St. Mary's will compete in foursomes with golfers from Colorado School of Mines, Cameron and Washburn in the first round. The first round will be a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. with the Rattlers on holes four through seven.
• The field for the tournament will consist of teams from Cameron, Colorado School of Mines, #17 DBU, Lubbock Christian, Midland, (host) #23 Midwestern State, New Mexico JC, Odessa, Southern Nazarene, Southwestern Oklahoma State, #9 St. Mary's, Texas A&M International, UT Dallas, #25 UT Permian Basin, Washburn, Western New Mexico, and Westminster.
• The weather forecast for Wichita Falls calls for mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the mid-70s on Monday and mid-80s on Tuesday, with winds between 16-18 mph both days.
• St. Mary's remained ninth in the first GCAA Coaches Poll of the spring on March 6. The Rattlers have been ranked in the top 25 in nine straight polls, the second-longest streak in school history behind the 20 straight from 2018-2020.
• At the Las Vegas Desert Classic, the Rattlers placed 13th, shooting a +21 885 over the three rounds. Senior Baptiste Touchard and sophomore Elijah Galvan tied for 27th place to lead the team. They each shot 219 (+3) for the tournament, with Touchard golfing 74-74-71, and Galvan posting scores of 72-74-73.
• The Rattlers finished second at the Rattler Invitational at the Dominion Country Club. All seven golfers for StMU finished in the top 27 in the standings, led by senior Kongpop Kaikaew who tied for fourth with his even-par 216.
• Senior Baptiste Touchard was named the Lone Star Men's Golfer of the Week after his victory in Florida at the . It is his first award of the season, but the fourth for the team, as Kongpop Kaikaew has won twice and Guillaume Paquette once.
• The 264 shot by the Rattlers in the second round of the Skip Wagnon Invitational breaks the school single-round record by four strokes, while the 806 shatters the 54-hole tournament record of 833 from the 2004 team at the St. Edward's Invitational. Kongpop Kaikaew's 197 also establishes a new 54-hole individual record, bettering his own record of 198 from last year at the Ryan Palmer Foundation Invitational.
• One of the strengths of the Rattlers is that any tournament, anyone can step up to be a leader. Kongpop Kaikaew and Baptiste Touchard have each led the team seven times, while Philip Hallstrom has been the low scorer five times, Guillaume Paquette has done so four times and Elijah Galvan led for the first time in his career at the Las Vegas Desert Classic.
