Columbus’ Mike Marinelli, Doral’s Armando Echeverria are Dade Golf Coaches of the Year
The best active golf runs in Miami-Dade County hit new heights this year and so, for the fourth straight season, Mike Marinelli and Armando Echevarria are the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Golf Coaches of the Year.
Marinelli and Columbus finished second at the Class 3A championship -- the Explorers’ best finish in 20 years -- and Echevarria and Doral Academy finally cracked the top five at the 3A final after years of making it finishing lower in the standings at state championships.
Both were also the Miami-Dade Golf Coaches of the Year in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Neither of these historic seasons was much of a surprise, though.
Columbus finished third in 3A in 2021 and brought back all three starters for their senior seasons this year, and they were better than ever.
Doral also brought back three all-county performers from 2021, led by senior Gabriella Gomez, and rode youthful experience -- the majority of the lineup was made up of underclassmen -- to a fifth-place finish in Howey-in-the-Hills.
“That’s the beauty of our program,” Echeverria said. “We’ve always had a lot of older players with a lot of playing experience help out the younger players.”
Although historic, the Explorers’ season did end with heartbreak.
Columbus considered itself the team to beat this year and went into the 3A championship with a two-day plan to finally bring some gold medals back to Miami.
The Explorers were happy with their first day at Mission Inn Resort & Club -- the plan, Marinelli said, was just to be within five strokes after a rocky first round at the difficult course cost Columbus in 2021 -- until the Florida High School Athletic Association abruptly trimmed the two-day event into a one-day affair because of Hurricane Nicole.
Marinelli found out when he was on the 17th hole -- not nearly enough time for him to have his golfers chance their approach and try for a comeback. Columbus finished four strokes behind Jupiter.
“This would’ve been the culmination of the greatest team we assembled in quite a while, so we were pretty excited about it and then it just gets cut short,” Marinelli said. “It is what it is. ... I get it.”
The future, though, for both teams -- even the Explorers, with their five-senior lineup -- is exciting.
The Firebirds are only losing Gomez, who will play for the FIU Panthers next year. Columbus tried to use its bench players as much as possible in the regular season and Marinelli has faith in the next generation of explorers.
He’s also excited about a rare accomplishment from this team: All five starters, he said, should play in college, with already Hans Risvaer committed to the UCF Knights, Christian Figueredo committed to the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles and Max Fonseca committed to the Penn Quakers.
“Really cool, actually,” Marinelli said. “I don’t think [it] has ever been done.”