BELLE VERNON, Pa. -- Point Park men's and women's golf begin their 2026-27 season on Thursday in the Vulcan Classic, hosted by California (PA). The invitational is slated to take place at Cedarbrook Golf Course.

Point Park returns five men from the 2025-26 campaign, including two top-30 finishers from the 2025 MEC Championship in Joshua Topper and Elie Ben Natan, who finished 24th and 30th respectively.

On the women's side, Point Park returns only one player from the 2025-26 squad in junior Gabi Wait. Wait finished 20th at the MEC Championships in the fall and 28th at the MEC Spring Championships last season. Her top finish was a 10th-place showing at Saint Vincent.  

The Pioneers, who begin their first full season under Head Men's & Women's Golf Coach Tom Pakulski, were picked to finish ninth and 10th, respectively, in the MEC Preseason Poll.

The Pioneers added four men and two women to the squad in 2026.

"I think we're a deeper team than we were last year," Pakulski said. "I think that'll lead us to compete more on a regular basis as a group, rather than individually."

The team aspect of what can often be an individual game is something Pakulski is working to emphasize with the current squad. "Your whole life you grow up playing by yourself and worrying about your own score," he said, "and getting a group to realize that any decision they make affects not only themselves … is a fun problem to solve, and the group has done a great job already.

"They've gone out and initiated that themselves which is very promising and exciting for me as a coach - that they see that team aspect."

As the individuals begin to come together to form a team, Pakulski is seeing the building blocks for the future.

"We're very young, four or five returners were sophomores … we're relatively young," Pakulski added "which means we have a lot of room to grow. I'm happy about [the returners], the biggest thing is just getting more consistent."