BEAUMONT, Texas — It is tournament time for Lamar men's golf team. Wednesday morning the Cardinals will head west to Boulder City, Nevada for the WAC Championship.
The twelve team event gets underway Friday and runs through Sunday.
Lamar has had a solid season, highlighted by a second place finish at the Little Rock Invitational and a third place finish in the Border Olympics.
Going strictly by the rankings, Sam Houston and Grand Canyon are the favorites followed by Lamar, but Big Red knows they can play with anyone in the nation.
Pedro Marin made that point very clear.
"We all know the team is capable of great things and when all perform at our best capacity we do know that we can score and we can compete, even with the better teams. Such as Baylor, such as A&M and why not? The WAC is a very competitive conference and if we do play our best capacity we should for sure be up there and have a chance for the title."
Head Coach Jessie Mudd has high expectations, but understands what it takes to win a team event.
"Expectations realistically is to win. You know we'll have to go out and perform well, but we have a really good chance of winning this year. You know, team golf you play five, you count four. So realistically we just need to have four solid rounds. Nobody needs to play great. Obviously I'd like to have somebody play great and contend for the individual title as well. Or maybe two or three of them contending, but realistically I just need to play solid, nothing special."
Marin believes the Cardinals will benefit from an experienced roster.
"Obviously, fortunately enough we're kind of like an elder team. We have quite a few juniors, a sophomore and we have some seniors too. At the end of the day the experiences and play is a key role in any kind of tournament. I do agree that if you want to win you need that level of confidence that upperclassmen tend to have. So I think we have one of the strongest teams out here in the conference and of course why not give it a shot?"