Aria earned her award by competing on the Disc Golf Pro Tour and playing large events across the southeast United States from her home state of Texas. Aria’s Rookie Season was launched by her 2021 win at the National Amateur Disc Golf Tour Championship. In 2021 Aria did a full Amateur tour that included top-ten finishes at Amateur Worlds and the US Women’s Championships leading up to her win at the NADGT Championship.

Aria’s win at the NADGT Championship propelled her to her first season touring as a professional after winning access to the Disc Golf Pro Tour’s Tour Pass system which allowed her to register for a bulk of the Pro Tour events for free thanks to a NADGT sponsor. 

Her best finish on the Disc Golf Pro Tour in 2022 was at Latitude 64°’s own Texas State Championship, where she finished in third place. Aria also secured two A-Tier wins on her way to her Rookie of the Year award. 

Aria was ecstatic about earning this award, “It feels really good! There were many talented ladies competing for Rookie of the Year and I’m happy I was able to win the award. I worked hard, and I practiced a lot last year. I will continue to work hard and I’m looking forward to 2023!”

Aria said her most memorable win of the season was the Veterans Open in November. From Aria, “I was only ahead by a couple points for Rookie of the Year at that time, and I really wanted to win the title. I played two 1000+ rated rounds in a row for the first time in my career and beat some really great players that weekend. Winning this tournament helped to secure my Rookie of the year title!”

Aria’s season was full of memorable moments, but her top moment came at the US Women’s Disc Golf Championship. Aria said, ” It was cool to be on coverage during my first round with legends Des Reading and Juliana Korver. I played well during the tournament and very good the last round, which moved me up the leaderboard to a 7th-place finish. I played 999 that round, just missing 1,000 rated round by one point!”

You can view the round Aria is talking about on the PDGA’s YouTube channel at the following link: 2022 USWDGC | R1F9 | Reading, Korver, Cox, Castruita | Central Coast Disc Golf – YouTube

When talking to Aria about her plans for 2023, she has some lofty goals, “To travel to most of the DGPT tournaments and finish in the top ten at some of them, and to win an elite series. I also want to improve my rating from 939 to 960 and it would be neat to have some more 1000+ rated rounds.”

We could not be more proud of Aria and wish her the best for her 2023 season!