LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) – UNLV men’s golf senior Caden Fioroni secured the wire-to-wire victory and his first career collegiate win Tuesday at the Southern Highlands Collegiate hosted by the Rebels at Southern Highlands Golf Club (Par 72, 7,510 yards).

REBELS MAKE IT HAPPEN: The San Diego native became the seventh Rebel to earn individual medalist honors and the first to do so since Jack Trent in 2019. It also gave the Scarlet & Gray program its second consecutive individual champion this spring and a second straight season with multiple individual wins after Yuki Moriyama’s two last year.

FINAL STAND: Clinging to a two-shot lead over No. 2 Auburn’s Carson Bacha with two holes remaining and sitting at 1-over for the day, Fioroni delivered his sixth consecutive par on the 18th hole to give him a final score of 9-under 207 (67-67-73) for the tournament.

COMPETING WITH BEST: The Scarlet & Gray posted an even-par 288 on the day to finish second at 1-over 865 through 54 holes, landing only behind the second-ranked Tigers (-9) in a stacked 14-team field that featured nine top-25 ranked squads and 13 top-50 teams. Among the list of teams the No. 31 Rebels finished ahead of were No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 9 Virginia, No. 11 Florida, No. 12 Illinois, No. 16 Georgia Tech, No. 18 SMU, No. 22 San Diego State, No. 24 Pepperdine, No. 26 Texas A&M, No. 30 Georgia and No. 50 USC.

REBEL ROUNDUP: Four Rebels finished inside the top 30, including sophomore Zach Little (+3) in a tie for 12th, senior Trevor Lewis (+6) in a tie for 28th and senior Wyatt Plattner (+7) in a tie for 30th. Behind them, senior Ben Sawaia (+13) closed out the squad’s lineup in a tie for 63rd. Playing as individuals, sophomore Dillon Dean (+10) ended up in 47th place, while junior Billy Smith (+15) tied for 75th and junior Brett Sawaia (+22) finished 80th.

QUOTABLE: “I’m so proud of the way we played, especially the first two rounds when the weather was tough and you could see what the overall scores of the tournament were like. Our guys really held their own. Winning can be infectious and when you see a teammate win a tournament it can inspire you and everyone else on the team, so it’s great to see Caden do that today. We’ve had some big goals of getting multiple individual wins. We’ve got that now, and our team finishing second was also really great.”
– UNLV Head Coach Jean-Paul Hebert

UP NEXT: UNLV will return to action on March 17 at the two-day All-American Intercollegiate being hosted by Houston at the Golf Club of Houston.