The autumn semester at a college brings with it many alternatives, as new and returning college students and school arrive on campus to start out contemporary and convey within the new faculty 12 months.
At Salisbury College, a type of new alternatives concerned a brand new sports activities workforce that made its debut through the fall sports activities season.
The golf workforce skilled its first season at Salisbury College, starting in September and wrapping issues up on the finish of October. The golf workforce’s debut season was the following step in a multi-year course of for the college that it hopes will culminate in competing on the highest stage alongside the remainder of SU’s athletic applications.
The concept for bringing a golf workforce to SU originated throughout former athletic director Gerry Dibartolo’s time on the helm of the athletic division, and the method continued beneath new athletic director Monica Polizzi. The primary steps concerned discovering the pinnacle coach that will lead males’s and girls’s golf groups at SU. In October of 2023, the college determined that that individual could be Dalton Deardorff.
Salisbury College’s Head Golf Coach Dalton Deardorff (proper) through the fall 2024 season. (Photograph: Courtesy Salisbury College athletics.)
Deardorff first reached out to Salisbury about beginning a golf program in 2017 when he moved to the Jap Shore, and was knowledgeable that it was one thing they have been already wanting into. And when the announcement got here in 2023 that they have been formally beginning a workforce, Deardorff knew he wished to place his title into consideration.
“I have to throw my hat in the mix,” Deardorff stated. “Who knows if I’ll get it, but it’s always been a dream of mine to see it come to Salisbury. So when I saw it be announced, I had to throw my name in the mix. And through a rigorous interview process, I was blessed to be given the position and take it on.”
Golf has been part of Deardorff’s life for 25 years as a participant and coach, studying the sport when he was younger, and taking part in collegiately at Marywood College (Scranton, Penn.). And after being employed to steer SU’s golf workforce, it began an nearly year-long means of placing within the foundations for the primary season, from discovering a house course, to discovering the gamers that will make up the primary rosters for the lads’s and girls’s groups.
And when it got here to fielding their first roster, completely different avenues allowed Deardorff and his workers to seek out the gamers that will symbolize the Sea Gulls on the golf course. Salisbury College already had a membership golf workforce, which helped with discovering a couple of gamers. One participant used to play soccer, and switched to golf after an harm. And for some incoming freshman, they and their highschool coaches reached out to this system individually in hopes of probably taking part in at SU.
Emma Wivell, a junior, was one of many gamers that was on the membership golf workforce and determined to pursue taking part in for SU’s new golf program. A buddy of hers and certainly one of her future teammates had determined to pursue taking part in for the brand new SU workforce, and when she came upon that Wivell performed for the membership golf workforce on the faculty, she really helpful that she attain out to Deardorff.
“I’m never going to not at least look at an opportunity, so I met up with Dalton and we had a great conversation,” Wivell stated. “I really loved everything he had to say, and from that point on it was pretty easy for me to decide that I want to be apart of it.”
Salisbury College golfer Parker Pruitt through the 2024 fall golf season. (Photograph: Courtesy Salisbury College athletics.)
Freshman Parker Pruitt performed golf all through highschool and wished to play faculty golf. As a Maryland native, Salisbury was a faculty he was aware of when he was deciding which faculty he wished to attend, and when he heard they have been debuting a brand new golf workforce, he jumped on the alternative to attend the college and attempt to play for the workforce.
“Salisbury was always a school close to me. I lived in Maryland so I knew a lot about Salisbury,” Pruitt stated. “Then I heard they were making a golf team, and it kind of just clicked for me that ‘Wow, I should really tour.’ And when I came, I’d already been here a couple times, loved the school. And just meeting the coach really was the sell. I loved the coach, he’s a great guy.”
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Being a part of Salisbury’s first golf workforce is one thing that the athletes and coaches take very significantly, and it’s additionally one thing that they take nice satisfaction in. Enjoying for a college whose Division III applications are recognized for fulfillment on a nationwide stage, they need to be sure that Salisbury golf at some point reaches those self same heights.
“It’s such an amazing opportunity, and I’m so grateful to be a part of this program. To literally be the first ever women’s golf team at the university I go to,” Wivell stated. “It’s something I carry with a lot of pride. I hope that everywhere we’re going, whether it’s tournaments, practices, we’re making great impressions and building that respect for the program.”
And the truth that they’re the primary golf workforce on the faculty additionally fosters a way of group and closeness, as they assist one another into unknown terrain.
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“We’re very close,” Pruitt stated. “There’s hardly a team I’m not with someone from the golf team. We walk 18 holes together, that’s four hours of us just talking about our golf game.”
On the subject of outcomes on the golf course, the gamers and coach Deardorff have been inspired by what they noticed of their first season. As preparations start for his or her spring season in 2025, they appear to construct on what they began this season, trying to find their first wins as a program. The golf program believes the sky is the restrict, given their core group of younger gamers and room for enchancment. And long run, the plan is for the golf groups to proceed climbing the ranks of Division III competitors, and grow to be one other profitable athletic program that represents Salisbury College.
“We knocked at the door a couple times individually on the men’s side, of winning a tournament,” Deardorff stated. “I think for a couple of our guys, that’s the goal, to cross off a first collegiate win on their résumé. And most of these guys are true freshmen; so that’s very exciting, too. I’ve got them for four years.”