RIO GRANDE VALLEY – After seeing good things in the fall, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros women's golf team is excited to see what they can do this spring. 
 
"We have great feelings about our semester coming up," UTRGV Head Coach Bryan Novoa said. "We have seven tournaments scheduled and everyone is really excited because we are basically going to have a changing lineup every week. We have a new system in place that everyone has bought in to and we are training very specifically. Everyone has a lot of confidence now knowing what they are working on and knowing what their core values and beliefs are. I am excited to get out there and put all that into play."
 
This spring, Coach Novoa has restructured practice and has implemented a system that will help keep track of training, goals, and progress among other things. The new system puts everything in the hands of the student-athletes and will help simplify things for them. 
 
The Vaqueros have certainly bought in and showed that commitment over the winter break. After a week and a half into practice this spring, Coach Novoa has seen some things that he is very proud of. 
 
"Giving the fact that we have been off for two months, I really see a lot of great adjustments and self-awareness happening," Novoa said. "I am really proud of that. They are open to making a swing modification or adjustment and they are doing it very quickly. We have great athletes on our team, and they are all making those adjustments in a fine-tuned fashion, and they are seeing those results on the course. They know how to train and how to apply it and they will see the results from it."
 
The Vaqueros kick off their season on Feb. 7 when they tee it up at the Texas State Invitational. Six of their seven tournaments this spring will be in Texas, including the Western Athletic Conference Championships from April 18-20. 
 
Being able to compete in state so many times is something that Coach Novoa and the Vaqueros appreciate. They know that there are great golf courses all over the state and there is some great competition as well. 
 
"We love it," Novoa said. "We get to play just south of Austin, in San Antonio, and in Corpus Christi. There is great golf in South Texas and there are great universities that play in the state of Texas. With our conference alone, Sam Houston, Lamar, Incarnate Word is ranked somewhere around 85^th in the country now. They have done a great job with their program, and they are going to be in our home tournament. We will be ready go and #RiseUp."
 
Following the Texas State Invitational, the Vaqueros will compete at the Islander Classic, as part of the South Texas Showdown, presented by Navy Army Community Credit Union. The Islander Classic will kick off a stretch of four tournaments in four straight weeks. 
 
The Vaqueros will then tee it up at the GCU Invitational before hosting the UTRGV Invitational from March 7-8 and ending the stretch at the HBU Husky Invitational from March 14-15. 
 
The final regular season tournament will be at the Cardinal Challenge from April 4-5 in Beaumont. 
 
The Vaqueros have a young squad heading into the spring but one with experience. Graduate student Rachel Yu and juniors Julie Lucio and Blayke Van Houten are the team's group of upper classmen. 
 
Yu and Lucio have played in their fair share of tournaments while sophomores Samantha Garza, Sophia Tejeda, and Mercedes Vega all have jumped right into the fold and have gained plenty of experience in their first couple of seasons. 
 
Then you add the freshmen group, led by Maria Jose Ramirez, who got her feet wet in the fall and will challenge to be in the lineup every tournament after posting a stroke average below 78. 
 
Coach Novoa believes he has a talented lineup with plenty more potential. The one thing he doesn't want to do is put any extra pressure on them. 
 
Expectations this spring will be developed and tracked by each member of the squad. The plan is to allow everyone to raise their own standards and expectations. 
 
"At the end of the day, our assistant coach, Paola Cortes-Ortiz, and I have developed the idea that our expectations are our own individual standards of the core principles of being a great competitor and a great human being," Novoa said. "That's the whole premise of the program. It's sitting there and building their own awareness to each situation, executing, and accepting feedback and then getting better the next opportunity and having that create our success as a whole. I believe this approach will allow us to be objective and succeed at the same time while we get better and get results. Everyone is going to raise their own individual standards over the course of the year and have expectations that are not built on pressure but on a belief system. That will give them peace and clarity to perform at a high level."
 
The Vaqueros did start to show signs of progress in the fall and while they had a top-10 finish, measuring success is not always about scores and where you finish in the standings. 
 
The Vaqueros want to continue to grow the program and to make it a stronghold within the UTRGV Athletics Department. 
 
In order to do that, the Vaqueros will have to take it one day at a time, moving forward and getting better each day.
 
"The way I measure success at this level as a golf coach is truly being better than you were the day before," Novoa said. "People look at golf scores and I am looking at golf skills. Golf skills includes mental perspectives, maturing on the golf course, and making decisions. I look at ball striking. At the end of the day, it's about being better than when they started in January. That might lead to a third place, a sixth place finish in conference, or a conference championship. I can't tell you that, but I can tell you that we are going to be way more intelligent, committed to a process that I know will work because we will be working on a skill of mastery for our plan."
 
If the plan works for the Vaqueros, then the sky is the limit for them. That's what brings excitement to this spring season. 
 
The opportunity is there for the taking. 
 
"I am looking forward to it," Novoa said. "We will see what it creates. I love coaching these 10 women and working with Coach Paola. I think we have a great opportunity to build what could be a very successful program in the country."
 
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