By MICHAEL HALL The Brunswick News | Posted: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 12:00 am
College of Coastal Georgia’s men’s golf team made good on its No. 1 national ranking Tuesday by winning the NAIA Men’s Fall Preview tournament that included 10 top 24 teams, four of which are ranked in the top five.
“It was nice that we won and we were able to see this layout for the first time, it’s the site of this year’s NAIA championship,” said coach Mike Cook.
His Mariners will be looking to win their third national NAIA championship in a row this coming spring, but for now, they are riding high off the big fall-season wire-to-wire win at TPC at Deere Run in Moline, Ill. It is the same course that hosts the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic.
Coastal Georgia won its first tournament of the season with a Round 1 team score of 302 and a Round 2 score of 293 for a tournament total of 595. It was enough to edge out No. 3 Oklahoma City University at 598 and No. 2 William Woods in third with a 600.
Leading the Mariners was junior Seth Sanders, whose score of 72 on both Monday and Tuesday placed him at second overall with a total score of 144, one stroke behind Oklahoma City University’s Anthony Marchesani.
“Seth was huge,” Cook said.
Freshman Chad McCann and sophomore Harrison Stafford each also shot 72 on Tuesday after carding 75s in the opening round. They were tied for fifth place with total scores of 147.
“The 72s by Harrison and Chad did it for us, basically delivering the win,” Cook said. “Our top two players struggled a bit, but it was still an all-out team effort.”
All-American senior Trevor Smith shot a 77 on Tuesday to follow up an uncharacteristically high score of 82 on Monday to finish tied for 54th place at 159 in the tournament.
Junior Dillon Board finished tied for 46th after shooting an 80 in Round 1 and a 78 in Round 2 to finish with a 158.
The Mariners will be back on the course next Monday and Tuesday at the Dave Adamonis Sr. Invitational hosted by Johnson & Wales at Trump National Doral in Doral, Fla.
It will be the final fall event for the Mariners.
They finished second in the same tournament a year ago.