Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Golf prepared for MVC Championship
04/22/2010 | 12:00:00 | Men's Golf
April 22, 2010
By Dana Ingraham
www.SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois men's golf team is set to travel to Kansas for the 2010 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Championship April 26-27.
The two-day, 54-hole championship will be held at the par-70, 6,598-yard Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan. Host Wichita State, led by senior Dustin Garza, is the league favorite to win the team title with eight first-place votes in the pre-tournament poll, followed by Illinois State in a fairly close second.
SIU is picked to finish in seventh place out of the nine Valley teams. Head coach Leroy Newton believes that with three good rounds from his team, the Salukis have a chance at breaking into the top-four.
"We have placed somewhere in the top-four every year since 2004, and I think we are just as capable of doing that this year," Newton said. "Wichita and Illinois State will be hard to knock out because they are so strong, but our goal of finishing among those top teams remains the same. We have gotten better every tournament this spring and I am expecting good things from our lineup."
Southern's four definites in the championship lineup will be Patrick Scheil, Jordan Cox, Jake Erickson and Blake Driskell. Two first-year Salukis, Jeffrey Miller and Clay Yates, remain in close competition for the fifth spot.
Although only Cox and Driskell have previous MVC Championship experience, as a team SIU has closed out the regular season competing at a high level. Scheil has paced the Salukis all spring with a season stroke average of 73.8 and four finishes inside the top-10 this year, and Erickson, Miller and Yates began to make significant contributions to the team scoring as the season progressed.
"We had a little bit of a misstep at Arkansas State, but we really played well against a good group of MVC schools at the Branson Creek Invitational," said Newton. "Our guys have been put under pressure for the past few weeks to qualify for a playoff spot, and they are anxious to play a championship course. If we all come out on the same page, I know we will play well."
The Salukis notched a third-place finish at last year's conference tournament at Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Mo., fueled by All-MVC performers Cox and Todd Obergoenner.
Championship action will begin Monday, April 26, with the first round of play beginning at 8 a.m. CT.
Players Mentioned
