The Eastern men’s golf team is confident going into the Ohio Valley Conference Championships.

The team recently finished in third place at the Illini Spring Classic on Sunday and will use the momentum from Sunday in the first round of the OVC Championships at the Paducah Country Club in Paducah, Ky.

Four Eastern players finished in the top 10 at the Illini Spring Classic. Eastern’s third-place finish was the season best.

Senior Mike Imburgia said the team has four players hitting the ball well.

“I feel as a team we are pretty strong coming into conference,” Imburgia said. “Me, (senior) Matt (Imburgia), (sophomore) Matt (Bird) and (freshman) Francisco (Cherizola) are all hitting strong right now.”

Mike Imburgia said he had played the Paducah Country Club Course the past two years.

“I played pretty well on it,” Imburgia said. “I remember it did take some time to get used to because it was a difficult course.”

Imburgia said he thinks the team has enough talent, and the players want to put a good score together this weekend.

“I think we can win it all,” Imburgia said. “The talent is there. I have seen it in spurts out of guys. If we can put it all together for three straight days, I think we have a good shot of winning the tournament.”

Mike and his brother Matt are tied for the lowest team average, as both have an average score of 75.2 through 20 rounds already this season. This is the 20th best in the OVC.

Bird has the team’s next lowest average, with a score close to the Imburgias’ at 75.8.

Cherizola is averaging 77.3 strokes per round and said the Panthers are playing their best golf of the season.

“I think right now we have the momentum going and we are playing our best golf,” Cherizola said. “It will be hard to win the tournament because we are playing some top 50 teams, but if we all play our best we have a shot.”

Cherizola said the big difference for the team is the fact that they can practice outside now. Poor weather in the Charleston area made it difficult for the team to practice outside at the start of spring.

Coming into the tournament, the Panthers have the sixth-best team average with 301.4 per team round. Eastern Kentucky is the best in the OVC with 287.6 per team round.

The Panthers are looking to improve on their finish last season when they finished in sixth place of 10 teams.

Round one will begin Sunday as players tee off at 8 a.m. Panther fans can follow live action of the rounds by clicking here for the OVC Web site.

Dan Cusack can be reached at 581-7944 or at dscusack@eiu.edu.