Eagles look to defend title at 2015 SAC Championships
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman men’s golf team is looking to repeat as South Atlantic Conference champions during this week’s SAC Championships at Firethorne Country Club in Marvin, N.C. hosted by Queens (N.C.).
Last year, the Eagles stormed from behind on the last day at the Sevierville Golf Club to knock off the Wingate Bulldogs by one stroke to take the conference title. Carson-Newman also won the SAC Championship in 2004. The Eagles were out in full force last week as the Carson-Newman women's golf team completed the comeback to clinch the conference title and coach Randy Wylie hopes and believes that the women's comeback got the men excited for their title defense.
"It just got everybody fired up about trying to defend our championship because it brought back really vivid memories of how great it feels to win and particularly your conference," Wylie said. "It's what you strive all year to do is to try to win your conference championship. It's the number one goal we put up at the beginning of the year is to become champions and we were able to do that last year. To defend, that would be really good."
Competing for the Eagles this week will be juniors Andrew Hall (Knoxville, Tenn.), Nicklaus Kennedy (London, Ontario), Nathan Hodge (Jefferson City, Tenn.), sophomore Dalton Reese (Warrenton, Ga.) and freshman Ben Kennard (Corryton, Tenn.). Reese and Kennedy were members of last season's championship winning team, while Hall, Hodge and Kennard are making their SAC Championship debut.
Hall has one of the lowest stroke averages in the league with 73.3 strokes and he has recorded four top-five finishes. Kennedy won the University of North Georgia Fall Invitational in a playoff and another top-five finish at the State Farm Intercollegiate. Kennard has surged during the spring portion of the team's schedule and he has two top-five finishes.
"Ben had a really nice spring. I'm really proud of his improvement. He's just got to keep working at his consistency, but he's improved dramatically. If he can continue that going into conference, that would be great. Andrew Hall, I can't say enough about him, he came in as our top recruit and he has played number one. He's played like a top recruit and that is super important, so we except continued good play from him," Wylie said. "We have a couple of guys back from last year's championship team who did a lot for us last year in Nick Kennedy and Dalton Reese. They have a lot of experience. And Nathan Hodge made the trip, so he is going to come in and tackle that five-spot and he's really been playing well as of late. His practices have gone really well, so Nathan might really surprise. He could really shoot some low scores.
Firethorne Country Club spans 6,904 yards and plays as a par-72 after transitioning to the Tar Heel State after the previous two tournaments had been played at Carson-Newman's home course of Sevierville Golf Club.
"When I saw the course, I thought the team that leads the tournament in fairways hit will probably win the golf tournament. I think it is a tee shot course and if you hit fairways, the second shot isn't that hard, but if you are missing fairways, you almost have no chance," Wylie said. "It's really going to be about the tee shots, but it's long enough you just can't hit an iron off the tee or you won't be hitting the right club in or you won't reach the dogleg. You kind of have to be aggressive off the tee and really just perform. It's a tough golf course, so hopefully we are up to the challenge."
Wingate and Lincoln Memorial are the highest-ranked teams in the SAC according to Golfstat.com. The Bulldogs are ranked 19th in the nation, while the Railsplitters are eight spots behind at 27th. Wingate's Ben Gebhardt is the reigning SAC Championships Individual Medalist and LMU's Braden Gaylon was named the league's Player of the Year on Thursday.
The Eagles go off the first hole of Firethorne Country Club on Sunday morning starting at 8:30 a.m. Full results and a recap of each day's events will be available on cneagles.com following the conclusion of each round.
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