Cherizola leads the way for mens teams

It is expected to see scores below par in any golf tournament, but not quite the scores in the F&M Bank Austin Peay State University Intercollegiate tournament.

The tournament at Austin Peay concluded Tuesday with the Eastern men’s golf team finishing in a tie for 7th place while the women’s team wrapped up in 9th place.

The men finished 15 under par as a team, but the winner of the tournament was Jacksonville State, which opened up a gap between it and its opponents, finishing 42 under par.

“We played pretty good this week with the guys but just got ran over by Jacksonville state, I think they set some kind of course record,” head coach Mike Moncel said. “I saw they were 29 under at one point, which is just incredible, but we were doing pretty well.”

David Lawrence, sophmore, said the course conditions for the tournament were great.

“Just perfect conditions, that course is made to play with the wind, the wind stayed down all week so I think that definitely led to some low scores you saw,” Lawrence said.

The men saw three players finish in the top 20 with senior Francisco Cherizola leading the way going six under par and finishing tied for 14th place overall.

The rest of the men’s team couldn’t keep up with Cherizola.

“We’re still trying to figure out our lineup,” Lawrence said. “We’ve had three good scorers at the tournaments, but as a team you need four good scores to compete at a high level so I think once we figure that out we can turn some heads.”

After day one, the men saw themselves in 3rd place, but skidded down the standings in day two.

This is a trend that the men have seen happen to them a couple times already this season.

“There’s reasons for it,” Moncel said. “We pressure ourselves a bit, maybe too much. They know they’re close and these guys are starting to mature. Our problem has been we can’t get guys playing well on the same day. It comes down to being a little more consistent.”

On the women’s side, the team wrapped up its fall season with a 9th place finish at the Austin Peay tournament.

“There were some good tournaments, and some tournaments we didn’t play to our expectations,” sophomore Lauren Williams said. “We just need to get more consistent to become the top contender we know we can be.”

The women’s fall season is over following the tournament.

Next up, the men will travel to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville for a tournament at Sunset Country Club on Oct. 24 to Oct. 26.

“The greens there are very fast,” Moncel said. “We’re trying to practice as many down hill putts as we can just to get used to the speed at that course.”

Chad Grimm can be reached at 581-7944 or ctgrimm@eiu.edu.