BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — The accolades are piling up fast for Brett Rinker.

But the Slippery Rock High graduate and sophomore on the Bowling Green State University men’s golf team isn’t resting on his quick collegiate success.

“I’m really focusing on my mental game this semester,” Rinker said. “I’m focusing more on working hard and making good golf shots. I can definitely see the difference.”

It’s a fine tuning of his game, one that has earned Rinker two prestigious awards after his breakout freshman season at Bowling Green.

Rinker won the Mid-American Conference Men’s Golf Freshman of the Year Award and also received the Frank Fuhrer III Collegiate Player of the Year Award by the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association.

“I knew I had a good chance of winning it,” Rinker said after a freshman season in which he secured a team-best average round of 73.26. “To win it as a freshman is amazing. There are a lot of good players who have won that award. It’s a huge accomplishment.”

Rinker’s sophomore season hit a rough patch in the middle of the fall semester, but he rebounded with a strong showing at the Ka’anapali Collegiate Classic in Hawaii.

There, Rinker shot a 3-under-par 210 in the three-round event, including a third-round best score of 68 to place eighth overall.

The best collegiate golfers in the nation were at the event and Rinker bested most of them.

“My best tournament was in Hawaii,” Rinker said. “I finished eighth and beat a lot of top 100 golfers in the country.

“Ultimately, that’s what you want,” Rinker added. “To play against the best in the country.”

That’s one of the reasons why Rinker chose Bowling Green.

When Kevin Farrell took over the program in 2012, he had his eyes on raising the national footprint of the team.

That meant traveling the country to enter tournaments, including the prestigious one in Hawaii.

“We’re playing against Georgia, Clemson, Oregon, some big, nationally ranked schools,” Rinker said. “And we stood up to them.”

Rinker hopes to live up to the lofty bar he has set already.

“Hopefully I can keep it going,” Rinker said. “I’m just going to try to play the best golf I can.”