WESTVILLE — Ever since the Westville boys’ golf team claimed the 2025 Vermilion Valley Conference title last fall, the Tigers have been teeing off on new territory.
This season, Westville already is approaching the 20-win mark in nine-hole matches. The Tigers are 19-2 and have shot below 170 four times. Coach Dustin Simpson says the 19 wins are a program-best. There’s still several matches to play.
“I returned five of the top six from last year,” Simpson said. “Last year we had kind of come on at the end of the season and won our first conference title in school history. The biggest thing I can say is summer-wise, I had a couple kids that were just tearing it up on the golf course all summer. I have a sophomore who went out and started playing and ended up being in my top six. Him and my No. 1, Damian (Alvarez), they both played in summer tournaments all summer and I don’t know if you could find them away from the golf course. That has really translated to the success that we’ve had this year.”
Westville’s top six includes two seniors, three juniors and a sophomore. Simpson says his top four is made up of its youngest golfers.
“I think it helped skyrocket the motivation on the team,” Simpson said about last year’s VVC title. “I think they all knew that it’s not often you return five of your top six and the sixth one coming in is pretty good. I think that helped elevate them and it kind of changed my expectations. Like, alright, we did this last year, now let’s elevate and let’s go beyond that and try to really see how far we can take this thing.”
The two lone losses this season have come recently, but have been outliers. Salt Fork topped Westville by five shots on Monday, though Alvarez’s 1-over-par 37 was the medalist score. The Tigers first loss came weeks ago, and actually happened on the day they shot their lowest score this season. Danville beat Westville by the fifth-man tiebreaker after both teams shot 159.
Regardless of the team’s first loss, Simpson remained positive on what it could mean for later this season.
“When I looked at the score, my number one shot a 37, my number four shot a 39,” he said. “I just look at it and am like ‘That was really good and I’m glad that we got there, but let’s do better. I want to get four scores in the 30s, because when you do that, that’s when you’re really performing at the top level.”
Simpson is aiming at defending the VVC title later this season, but also has his eye on helping the Tigers’ boys’ golf program win its first regional title in school history. Westville shot 360 last year and were 23 shots off regional champion St. Thomas More.
“These kids have earned it,” Simpson said. “They’ve worked their butts off and they’ve gone out and really have played a lot of golf. We had practice (Tuesday) for an hour. I had a couple kids stay afterwards because they just wanted to play and just really wanted to get better. They’ve earned every bit of this.”
The six-some of Alvarez, Ryder Burns, Christian Giles, Kiptyn Appl, Ben Johnson and Gavin Long will play Saturday in the Westville home tournament at Harrison Park in Danville. VVC teams help make up the 13-team field as well as Casey-Westfield, Unity, Tri-County, Blue Ridge, Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley and Chrisman.