After the Texas State women’s golf team ended its season placing 10th at the NCAA Bryan Regional Tournament a week ago, the Sun Belt Conference office announced its end-of-year awards on Thursday.
Texas State Head Coach Par Nilsson won Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year. Although the Bobcats didn’t advance to the NCAA Championship, they won the Sun Belt Conference Championship by six strokes. Texas State also placed top five in four tournaments including a win in the Texas State Invitational.
This is only the fifth time in school history that a Texas State head coach has been awarded conference coach of the year and Nilsson is Texas State’s first to earn it since 2016.
Along with the Bobcats seeing their head coach win Coach of the Year, Oklahoma State transfer Hailey Jones won the Sun Belt Conference Newcomer of the Year award.
Additionally, Jones, senior Junia Gabasa and sophomore Yvonne Chamness were awarded All-Sun Belt honors.
Jones earned a spot on the All-Conference First Team after she finished the season second in the Sun Belt Conference in stroke average and led Texas State in birdies and pars. Jones also had three top-10 finishes and won two tournaments over the season. At the Sun Belt Championship, Jones received individual honors after shooting 67 in the final round to help Texas State go 2-0 in match play.
Gabasa also qualified for the All-Conference First Team as she had the second-best stroke average for the Bobcats and finished twice in the top six overall. This is the second time in her career that she received All-Conference honors. Gabasa went 4-1 in match play and 2-0 at the Sun Belt Championship.
Chamness finished second on the team in birdies and pars, which helped her make the All-Conference Second Team. Her score counted for the team in 22 of the 26 rounds she played and she shot par or better in half of those rounds. Chamness also ranks in the Sun Belt’s top ten players in the national Clippd rankings.
