NCAA title main goal for senior

Thursday, May 15, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

SANTEE, Calif. -- Even if Gilberto Morales finishes his collegiate career at UNLV without winning a golf tournament, the 21-year-old senior some day will look back on his four-year stint in Las Vegas as a whopping success.

That's just not the way he sees it now.

Morales, a former Junior World Champion from Caracas, Venezuela, came to UNLV in 1993 with hopes of winning a bunch of tournaments and leading the Rebels to a national championship.

Morales hopes to achieve the latter goal as the No. 1-ranked Rebels open play today in the NCAA West Region Championship at Carlton Oaks Country Club. But he enters what he hopes will be his next-to-last college tournament without a win.

"I feel like I've wasted years here," Morales said bluntly. "I haven't really played my game (in) any other years. Maybe at times, in my freshman year in the postseason, I thought I did ... but that was the only month I felt that I was really playing my game.

"But probably in the long run it will help me quite a bit. I've learned how to deal with the struggles and when I struggle again, it'll be easier to get out of it."

While Rebels head coach Dwaine Knight agrees that Morales has learned an important lesson from his struggles on the course, what Morales accomplished off the course -- earning a degree earlier this month in communications -- will prove to be equally as valuable.

"Overall, some of the things he has accomplished here he probably won't really realize until down the road," Knight said. "For him to get a degree was an incredible feat with the language problems he had."

Knight will be looking to Morales and Mike Ruiz, the Rebels' only seniors playing this week, to provide leadership in the regional and in the NCAA Championships later this month.

Morales, who leads the Rebels with a 72.96 scoring average and has five top-10 finishes this season, said he and his teammates are determined to come out of the regional with the team title and a high seeding in the NCAA Championships. Morales stressed the word "team" in talking about his preparations for the 54-hole regional.

"I'm just trying to go out and have a great attitude out there and do whatever I can for the team," Morales said Wednesday after the Rebels' final practice round on Carlton Oaks.

Knight said he believes Morales will be a key to UNLV's postseason success, and is happy with the way Morales has prepared for the regional.

"I think he's in a real good frame of mind right now," Knight said.

* REGIONAL NOTES: UNLV must finish ninth or better in the 18-team NCAA West Region field to advance to the NCAA Division I Championships May 28-31 at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Ill. ... The Rebels were paired with New Mexico and Southern California in today's opening round. UNLV is the No. 1 seed from District 8, New Mexico is the top seed from District 7 and USC is the second seed from District 8. ... UNLV is making its ninth consecutive appearance in the West Regional. The Rebels have never finished lower than fifth and have won twice (1990 and 1994). ... UNLV has three team victories this season, one shy of the school record set in 1993-94 and matched by last year's squad. The Rebels have finished either first or second in eight of their 12 tournaments this season. ... Two Rebels, senior Mike Ruiz and junior Bill Lunde, are having homecomings this week. Ruiz played high school golf at San Diego's Patrick Henry High School and Lunde was a standout at nearby Poway High School. ... Sophomore Ted Oh and freshman Jeremy Anderson are playing in their first West Regional this week. ... The newly expanded Western Athletic Conference has supplanted the Southeastern Conference as the dominant college golf conference in the country. Twelve of the 16 WAC schools qualified for the NCAA postseason, with eight (UNLV, New Mexico, BYU, Texas-El Paso, San Diego State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Jose State) playing in the West Regional and four (Texas Christian, Southern Methodist, Rice and Tusla) competing in the Central Regional. Both the Southeastern and Pac-10 conferences qualified nine schools for regional play.