Gratitude was the name of the game for head coach Doug Sabotin and the Trinity Lutheran boys golf team as they hosted the Cougar Invitational at Shadowood Golf Course on Saturday.

Eleven teams competed in the event, the weather was perfect and Sabotin wanted to first and foremost thank Shawn Marshall for being the instrumental piece in helping organizing the invitational, as well as Ryan Myers, the owner of Shadowood.

“Because of Shawn and Ryan and their professionalism and the conditions on the course, we were able to host Fishers, Salem, Shelbyville, Greenwood, all these schools coming from all over just to name a few, whose coaches all said what a great experience and great day it was,” Sabotin said. “And for me, as a golf coach, as a father and as part of Trinity Lutheran high school, that was really the biggest highlight of the day. Just the fact that we were able to come together and have such a great event.”

Sabotin also wanted to thank Aaron Ginsberg, the assistant athletic director at Trinity, for the behind-the-scenes work he did for the team heading into the invitational.

“Ryan, Shawn and Aaron should be the ones who are recognized,” Sabotin said.

As for the results on the course, Trinity was able to place sixth as a team out of the 11 teams that competed. The Cougars shot a 404 as a team. Fishers was the winner as it shot a 320 as a team to take first place.

Sabotin was pleased with how his team performed, especially because he thinks they followed the five values that they focus on for each match: do your best, have fun, play as a team, honor God and learn every day.

“Those five things are what we spend most of our time talking about,” Sabotin said. “There’s no such thing as a perfect score in golf. As long as we remember those things while we’re out on the golf course, to me, it’s a huge success, which we did Saturday.”

Jacob Sabotin led the team on Saturday, shooting an 83, which earned him a top-10 medal for placing seventh overall.

Kade Hill shot a 104, Caleb Williams shot a 107 and Preston Kovener shot a 110.

Sabotin believes something Jacob was doing really well was not getting too excited after a good shot and not getting too down after a bad shot, just staying steady and knowing that the next shot is always the most important one.

“Staying in the moment is one of the challenges in being a good golfer,” Sabotin said. “I would say more than anything else Jacob did a good job of staying in the moment and trusted his swing.”

The Cougars are about halfway through their season so far, and Sabotin has been most proud of the consistency to his team. Most of the scores his team gets have been around their averages, with some slight improvements, as was the case this past Saturday.

In terms of what he wants his team to improve on moving forward, it’s the same five values they’ve been focusing on all season.

“I’m excited about the last four weeks of the season going into sectionals,” Sabotin said.

Trinity will be back in action today at home against Salem at 5 p.m. Then the Cougars will be playing at Hauser on Tuesday with Jennings County and again on Saturday for the Hauser Invitational.