Samuel Espinosa recently said the process of qualifying to be in the starting lineup for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's golf team was sometimes "more scary than tournaments."
It was a perfect design by second-year head coach Blaine Woodruff entering the season. With all five starters returning from the 2022-23 team that advanced through the NCAA Division I tournament's regionals and qualified for the championship event, Woodruff was trying to keep complacency from becoming a problem for the Mocs
So he made additions to the roster. Dalton Chuba, a Baylor School graduate who transferred from nearby Division II power Lee University in Cleveland, started five tournaments and had a low round of 65 in one of them. Ward Harris, the lone high school signee last year, wound up becoming a Southern Conference all-freshman team selection.
So while Espinosa, Paul Conroy, Garrett Engle, John Houk and Braedon Wear remained the primary players, they earned it.
"It really pushed the core guys from last year to get even better and further their games," Woodruff said. "It wasn't that they were complacent, but it kind of forced them to bring it every single day, because we had three or four guys at home that could easily be in the lineup."
The Mocs have fed off each other. That was seemingly the case in the SoCon tournament last month, when they fell nine strokes behind first-place East Tennessee State after the opening round and still trailed by four after the second round but rallied late, nearly pulling off an amazing comeback but ultimately finishing second — two shots off the Buccaneers' winning pace.
"I think there's a common theme for us the last two years with these five guys that every day we get a little bit better," Engle said. "We've been talking about having good awareness and prepping the way you need to get ready for the week, and I think that's the most important part. If we can just start out a little bit stronger, I think we're going to be in a great spot."
The Mocs may have been a year ahead of schedule last spring, when they finished third in the SoCon tournament and qualified for the NCAA postseason field. But that hasn't been the case this season, which the Mocs started with a win at the Erin Hills Intercollegiate in Milwaukee last September, where Espinosa was the individual champion. Two weeks later, they won the Bearcat Invitational in Cincinnati.
"Last year was an awesome year because we were like, nobody, and we were out there with the big teams," said Espinosa, a senior from Spain. "We were wanting to prove we were good and we deserved to be up there, because everyone was like, 'OK, really good year. Awesome, happy for you guys.' But we were like this princess story."
UTC's bid to return to the NCAA championship event starts Tuesday in the Rancho Santa Fe Regional at The Farms Golf Club near San Diego. If the seventh-seeded Mocs are one of the top five teams there, they'll advance to the big event that starts May 24 at Omni La Costa Resort — also near San Diego.
Getting to the final phase was the goal entering the season, and Woodruff raised the competition level on the team to give them a chance of making that happen.
"It's going to take everybody being mentally tough," Engle said of what was necessary to advance. "Everyone there has a physical ability to do something special. It's just all going to come down to the mental aspect of the game."
Espinosa has seen the Mocs prove themselves in that regard — particularly if just one of them can get rolling.
"We have something really special on this team," he said. "We struggle through the first few holes, and somebody out of the five starts making birdies, and I don't know why, but automatically everyone else starts playing really good. That's kind of what we have to think about: No matter how we start off, we get going, and I think we have a pretty good chance in California."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com.