Men’s golf team readies for this weekend
April 2, 2015
The Eastern men’s golf team will compete in its third tournament of the spring when it heads to Arkansas State for a three-day tournament beginning Friday.
The tournament will be held at Ridgepointe Country Club, an 18-hole course in Jonesboro, Ark.
The Panthers are coming off an eighth place finish at Jacksonville State, where sophomore Marcus Dahlin led Eastern finishing 13-over-par and placed 31st for the event.
Dahlin was the lowest-scoring Panther that tournament followed by senior Oscar Borda. Borda finished the tournament with 234 strokes and finished in 37th place.
Dahlin has a season average of 76.71 strokes per round in 17 rounds this season. Borda has had a similar season, averaging 76.71 strokes this year in 16 rounds this season, including the fall.
Fellow senior James Jansen carries a 77.67 season average into the tournament, through 12 rounds this season. Jansen has totaled 932 strokes in 12 rounds this season.
Junior Austin Sproles has averaged 77.45 strokes per tournament this year, through 11 rounds this year.
Eastern has finished in eighth place twice before the Jacksonville state outing. Both of those finishes came at DePaul and Austin Peay, where the Panthers finished eighth in a 12-team field.
Eastern also had a fourth place finish back in September at the Chicago State Fall Classic, in an eight-team field. Sophomore Ryan Hughes led the Panthers that day with a 149-stroke performance, and tied for 10th place, which has been the Panthers only Top-10 finish of the season.
His brother, sophomore Ryan Hughes, followed with a 150-stroke performance tying him for 11th place.
Several Ohio Valley Conference members will be competing in the Arkansas State tournament, including: Austin Peay, Belmont, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, Tennessee Tech, Tennessee-Martin and Eastern.
Other teams expected to compete are Creighton, Southern Illinois-Carbondale, Illinois State, Florida Atlantic, North Dakota and the host Arkansas State.
Following this tournament, Eastern will have two weeks off before its next tournament at Xavier from April 19-21. The OVC tournament will follow two days later on April 23rd in Shoals, Ala.
Blake Nash can be reached at 581-2812 or banash@eiu.edu.
