Last season’s historic Big East tournament victory propelled Head Coach Tommy Hunter and the men’s golf team into the NCAA tournament. Although the Hoyas didn’t advance past the regional level, making it to the NCAA championships was still an accomplishment following the program’s first conference title in 12 years, which succeeded a trying regular season that had the Hoyas enter the tournament as the 11th of 12 seeds.

“We were very realistic about our chances and very realistic about our goal there, [which] was to prove to people that we can play and were worthy of the position that we were in,” Hunter said of his team’s pre-tournament expectations.

After the first two rounds of the regional level, the Blue and Gray had proven their worth and found themselves in some pretty heady company by the final day.

“The final day we were paired with Georgia and Rice, two of the nation’s elite golf teams,” Hunter said. “It was an honor to be in their company … [but] I think at times the guys were just pressing a little too much and trying to hit some shots we normally wouldn’t hit.”

Although the last round did not go as smoothly as Hunter had hoped, he knows that merely playing against such tough opponents will pay dividends.

“All in all it was a great experience that we can draw on in terms of knowing how to play against top teams and making sure we stay within ourselves and play our own games,” Hunter said.

Already, though, the Hoyas have begun putting aside last year’s postseason successes, as their first tournament of the fall is less than two weeks away. They won’t get a chance to ease back into their schedule either, as the field at the Navy-hosted tournament includes talented teams such as Northwestern and North Carolina State.

Despite the success at the end of last year and the tough early-season schedule, Hunter refuses to get too up or down on his team’s prospects this year.

“The goal is to play better than last year, just like [it is] every year,” Hunter said. “We need to find a way to have all five players performing at the same time … so it’ll end up being a good team score.”

In order to do that, though, the Hoyas will have to overcome one particular problem that plagued them all last year: inconsistency. The team’s all-too-frequent lapses were immensely frustrating for Hunter and the players, and despite the team’s hiccup in the final round of the NCAA regional and the graduation of four seniors, Hunter believes his team will be able to overcome the problems of last year under the leadership of senior co-captains Brandon Ellis and Danny Hathway.

“If you take a look at our resumé last year … we’d play two good rounds and one bad round,” Hunter lamented. “Once you play one bad round in a 54-hole [tournament], you’re pretty much out of contention.”

It isn’t just the great finish to last year that Hunter wants his players to remember, either. Despite the four seniors on the team, last year’s starting five was rather inexperienced as it only featured one of those seniors – Vincenzo Salina – on a regular basis. Hunter wants those veterans to remember the lessons learned during the tougher times the team faced rather than dwelling just on the positive experiences of the last month of the season.

“I think the guys are mature enough players to [remember] that … there were some ups and downs,” Hunter said. “[They] understand that there were some challenges along the way.”

Even after the first tournament, and possibly even after the entire five-tournament fall schedule, Hunter might not know whether his team will be capable of maintaining the level of play that saw it through to the NCAA tournament last year. But he already knows what has to be done for the Blue and Gray to stay in the national spotlight.

“We need to be more consistent,” he said. “When you find consistency, you can challenge any kind of golf team in the nation.”