Glenn Paulus, Saints men’s golf coach, has earned Maryville’s first Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Coach of the Year award.

Paulus led the team to its first-ever appearance in medal-match play at the 2018 GLVC Championships and its second-straight berth into the NCAA DII postseason tourney. The team also won the McKendree Invitational, finished second at the Music City Invitational and tied for second at the Findlay Spring Invitational.

“At first I was surprised, then honored that my peers recognized the quality of play that our team exhibited and the sportsmanship with which they competed,” says Paulus, who is in his 12th year of coaching the team.

In addition, two of his players, Joey Williams and Conrad Maloney, were named to the All-America Scholars team for Division II. And the team earned the GLVC James R. Spalding Sportsmanship Team Award by a vote of the GLVC Coaches.

“At first I was surprised, then honored that my peers recognized the quality of play that our team exhibited and the sportsmanship with which they competed.”

“I am more pleased with this recognition than any of the others,” says Paulus.

The team ended its season at the NCAA DII Regional in 14th place. The Saints also finished second in the GLVC Championships and knocked out Bellarmine, the defending champs, before falling to the University of Indianapolis in the finals.

“The high point was qualifying for match play for the first time at the GLVC Championship,” says Paulus. “Although we lost in the final match, we had our best showing ever.”

Paulus was pleased the Saints were recognized as a strong the team during the 2016 – 2017 season in its first appearance in postseason play. That experience gave players confidence going into last season.

“The fact we were selected as an at-large team gave us confidence that we were close to being very competitive at this level,” says Paulus. “That feeling carried over into this year. Most of our players returned, and we had a good recruiting class this year. We had a solid core of four players who played in just about every event, and a chemistry developed. They weren’t going to let each other down.”

Paulus believes the team will be competitive again this year.

“Clearly, we have a strong group of young men on this team who have had the benefit of ample high-level experience early in their careers,” says Paulus. “I would be surprised if we did not have a lot of competitive success.”

Th Saints got off to a good start with the team grabbing the Arch Cup title during its first match of this season in early September. The Saints shot a total of 570 outpacing cross-town rival University of Missouri – St. Louis by 17 shots to win the tournament.