WAIMEA, Hawai`i--The Hawai`i Hilo Vulcans won the 2023 Pacific West Conference men's golf championship in Arizona by ten strokes, and had co-medalists to make it a clean sweep of awards. 

In 2024 at home on the Big Island, the Vulcans repeated, this time claiming the team trophy by a comfortable 14 strokes. They could also boast of the individual title winner in Nicholas Gomez. That's two crowns in a row for head coach Earl Tamiya's team, and the third overall in the history of the tournament. 

Today at the Mauna Lani Resort, the Vulcans held serve and then some after carrying a nine-shot lead into the final day. Hilo had rounds of 309-286-303 (+34) to win over islands rival Hawai`i Pacific (+48). Academy of Art (+51) was next after recording the lowest round of the day (289), moving past Chaminade (+58). Dominican (+61) and Westmont (+80) rounded out the field.

In a tournament that featured a very windy first day, Gomez was the most consistent through the three rounds. He carded rounds of 73-73-74, holding on to beat HPU's Kyle Krupp who shot a 70 on the final day but came up just one shot short (72-79-70) at +5. There were plenty of others chasing Gomez, as four players ended up tying for third place at +6---Carter Bell of Dominican (81-70-71), the Academy of Art duo of Giulio Zanichelli (80-70-72) and Jack Benedetti (77-72-73) and Hilo's Dylan Bercan (77-70-75).

Also contributing to Hilo's low team score was Dysen Park (+13) and Jacob Torres (+19). 

The Vulcans grabbed the PacWest's automatic qualifier into the NCAA West-South Regional Championships. That tournament is scheduled for May 9-11 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. 

To see the complete PacWest scorecard, click here.  Visit the men's golf championship page by clicking here.