D-R Golf Team Off to Strong Start

NEW BEDFORD - With two wins in two days, the Dighton-Rehoboth golf team and longtime coach Bill Cute are thinking big for the 2019 season.

“We’re off to a very good start,” Cute said at Whaling City Golf Course on Thursday after the Falcons beat Fairhaven 126-83 to improve to 2-0 on the season. “I’ve got 16 great kids on this team and I think we’ll have a winning season. We always have high expectations.”

Harry Taraian will be along the top performers this season, but for the Falcons to succeed, they’ll need more than just success at the top of the lineup. Eight players tee off at every match and the top six scores are used to calculate the team’s overall score.

“Depth is our best asset,” Cute said Thursday. “You can have the best player in the world, but that’s only one score. Every time out, I know I can put a team on the field that’s going to score quality points.”

Among the players Cute is expecting big things from this season are Peter Torres, Mitch Bushell, senior captain Dillon Walsh, Peter Anghinetti, Ben Horowitz and Andrew Machado.

With D-R off to a solid start, Cute is looking ahead to next week, when the Falcons can turn a solid start into an early grasp on the top spot in the South Coast Conference.

“Hopefully, we’ll win those and be off to a great start,” Cute said. “We have three at home, so we can really make a statement early in the season.”

REPORTERTODAY.COM MVP: Taraian carded a 2-over-38 on Thursday to lead the Falcons. He accounted for 34 points in the SCC scoring system in which payers earn different numbers of points per hole depending on how they perform. For example, he got two points for bogeying the first hole, four points each for parring the second, third and fourth holes, and six points for sinking a birdie putt on the seventh. His highlight of the day came on the last hole when he eagled the par-5 to notch eight points for the Falcons.

HOME SWEET HILLSIDE: This is the seventh year the Falcons will play their home matches at Hillside, and Cute couldn’t be more thankful to John Ferreira and the team at the country club for their help and support. “Hillside Country Club saved the D-R golf program,” Cute said. Seven years ago, the Falcons were without a course to play on less than 10 days before the season. Cute, who lives near Hillside, walked over to the country club one day. “As luck would have it, they were redoing the clubhouse and John was outside having a cup of coffee. I said ‘John, I need your help really bad’ and told him we needed a course to play on. He looked at me and said, ‘Don't worry, you guys are playing here from now on.’” Cute added that the course lets the team play as often as it needs to and the people at Hillside are always interested in how the season’s going and offering to help in any way they can. “We’re treated like royalty over there. We can’t thank them enough.”

DEPTH AT THE TOP: Taraian will hold the top spot, but Cute has high hopes for sophomores Torres (25 points on Thursday) and Bushell (20 points) contributing big points this season. “I can’t say enough about the work they did over the summer to get ready for the season,” he said.

SLEEPER AT THE BOTTOM: Machado came in as the last player in D-R’s starting lineup on Thursday, but Cute said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the junior climb the ranks. “He took a big jump over the summer from his sophomore year to junior year,” Cute said. “He’s improved so much.”

FAIRHAVEN STATS: Matt Morris led the Blue Devils (0-2) with 22 points while Boston Rodrigues and Ryan Deslauriers each had 15 points, according to SouthCoastVarsity.com.

DID YOU KNOW?: Cute is in his 43rd coaching season. You’ll have a hard time finding someone around Rehoboth who doesn’t have a good word to say about him from his years as a coach, teacher or being active in different community organizations.

UP NEXT: The Falcons (2-0) have three matches at Hillside next week: Apponequet on Tuesday, GNB Voc-Tech on Wednesday and Somerset Berkley on Thursday.

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