The Malden High School varsity golf team swings into a new season, lead by senior captains and returning players Brian Batting and Nicholas Andreucci. Coach Richard Malatesta also returns to celebrates his 27th consecutive year of coaching MHS golf.
Andreucci confesses how “the team is very new this year.” With there only being three returning players from the last season, Andreucci explained that this season “is [one of] transitioning,” due to the team being stacked with a lot more new members than old.
Both Andreucci and junior Nicholas Ansaldi agree that the team has great chemistry, even with the team being so new and inexperienced. This is due to most of the players have known each other for a long time prior to golf. Ansaldi explained that “[some] of [them] also play on the MHS baseball team and have been playing together for the past eight years,” long before being a part of the golf team.
Ansaldi is confident in his team and saying that they “have a team that can compete well in most games.” Though, Batting, while sharing his teammate’s sentiments, also commented how “the season is a hard one in comparison to years past, considering [they] only have six people to play in matches, when [the team] actually [needs] eight.” Despite their lack of numbers, the team still works their hardest while still maintaining the fun of the sport.
For most of the athletes on the golf team, the goal is win the Greater Boston League and become a GBL All-Star. For golfer Ansaldi though, he exclaims “[his] goal for this season is to better [his] game overall.” Ansaldi wishes to be become “a more efficient golfer,” and to “develop a deeper love for the game,” in order to be able to help his team. Ansaldi also mentions how he would like to “improve [his] techniques to help bring [his] team and [himself] to victory.”
As the captains, Andreucci and Batting both wish the best for their team. While winning matches and making it to the state tournament is always a goal, the priority for the golf team is to instill in the players a love of the game, and for them to be able to let golf be a game of a lifetime. Though, Batting and Andreucci also wish to maintain an average score of 40 strokes or less throughout the season. Like their teammates, the duo also wish to make it to States.
Everyone on the team has a great deal of love and respect to the time-old game of golf. To Batting, “golf is a simple, yet hard sport,” meaning while it is easy to learn, it’s a difficult sport to master. Though, the challenge is the very reason why he loves it. Andreucci explains how he loves that golf is a sport where you mostly “rely on yourself and that it’s always up to you to score the points.” Ansaldi confessed his love for golf was due to it being “a game of skill,” while also adding in how just in general “it’s extremely fun to play.” He loves how “there’s never an end to learning the game of golf.”
The team is working hard this season after losing many key players to last year’s graduating class of 2015, but it strives to build itself back together into a new, better team. MHS awaits the results of this new season of golf.
