A second place individual honor by senior David Lawrence, lead the Panthers to a sixth place finish overall, out of nine competing schools, at the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.

The three-day tournament took place April 26-28 at the par 72, 6,959-yard GreyStone Golf Course in Nashville.

Lawrence, who will compete in the PGA Tour Qualifying School in September, shot a three-under-par 213, firing off a low 69 in the final round, as well as a 71 and 73 on the first two days. This notched the soon to be pro his fourth Top Two finish in his final tournament as Panther.

Thanks to his performance on the back nine, Lawrence was able to put himself back into contention.

“I made a good charge and put myself in contention on the back nine,” Lawrence said. “There is no better feeling than having a chance to win down the stretch. Unfortunately, I had dug myself too deep of a hole to recover from and came up a little short.”

Tying for second place earned the senior All-Tournament honors, and marked the best individual performance by a Panther ever in the conference tournament. Prior to the season-ending event, Lawrence was named to the First Team All-OVC, also.

Senior Gino Parrodi earned himself a Second Team All-OVC honor. Parrodi shot a 219 (+3), tying himself for 17th individually, ending his final season at Eastern with his ninth consecutive Top 25 finish.

Fellow seniors Sean Dozier and Corbin Sebens followed tying for 24th place and 37th place, respectively, while junior Tommy Ponce placed 41st individually.

As far as his teammates go, Lawrence couldn’t ask for a better group.

“It is hard to believe we have played our last tournament together,” Lawrence said. “This is a great group of guys and I couldn’t ask for better teammates to have over the course of my four years.”

Eastern shot an 887 (+23) combined, finishing two strokes ahead of Morehead State at seventh, as well as out-pacing Tennessee Tech and host Tennessee State who placed eighth and ninth, respectively.

The sixth place finish is the Panthers best finish since 2007, where they also placed sixth overall.

Jacksonville State took home their second straight title and also captured an automatic berth to play in the NCAA Tournament. Finishing one stroke behind was Austin Peay, placing second. While Murray State, Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee-Martin rounded out the Top Five.

Juniors Tommy Ponce and Travis Smyczynski will be accompanied by freshmen James Jansen and Michael Koester as the only golfers returning for the Panthers next season.

Anthony Catezone can be reached at 581-7942 or ajcatezone@eiu.edu.