Ole Miss, Oregon notch regional college victories
October 24, 2016 by Baker Helton in Recap with 0 comments
Last weekend’s Southeast Collegiate Open was the largest qualifier tournament of the college disc golf season to date, hosting 26 teams and 99 individual competitors at the International Disc Golf Center in Appling, Georgia.
University of North Carolina-Charlotte dominated the competition, shooting a combined 70-under par to best the competition by 19 strokes and guarantee themselves a spot at the National Collegiate Disc Golf Championship in April. UNC-Charlotte’s Travis Chumley (-14) took home the singles title, as the 49ers placed all four of their A team players in the Top 10, including third place finisher Grady Shue (-11); fourth place finisher Tyler Cerritos (-9); and seventh place finisher Brian Zesch (-8).
North Carolina State followed up their solid performance at the Dean’s Cup with a strong showing in Georgia by placing their A team (-51) in second place and their B team (-28) in fourth. Mississippi State (-37) and East Tennessee State (-26) – who were both Top 15 fininshers at last year’s NCDGC – both started off the year strong by placing third and fifth, respectively.
With the teams in front of them already having a bid to the NCDGC secured, East Carolina University (-20) earned the tournament’s second bid to the championship by placing sixth. Other notables included Georgia Collegiate Disc Golf Open champion Kennesaw State, who finished in seventh place with a 15-under par.
The Southern Collegiate Disc Golf Association had a full slate of matches with each of the five teams in action over the weekend. Arkansas State (3-1) finished their conference regular season off strong with a 4-0 victory over Central Baptist College. Kellan McCann, Jared Aschbrenner, Jonathan Underwood, and Dawson Burge all had victories for the home team to secure the win.
Central Baptist (1-1) showed their resilience by turning around later that same day to beat Rhodes College (0-3) by a score of 4-2 at Bud Hill DGC in Memphis, Tennessee. After singles play left the teams tied at two points each, CBC shot a 49 in doubles play to beat Rhodes by three strokes and earn their first victory of the season.
After trailing 3-1 in singles play, Ole Miss (2-1) completed a dramatic comeback to beat Hendrix College (1-1). After Drew Coker, Charlie McCracken, and Baker Helton each earned a point for Hendrix in singles, Ole Miss used strong play from Alan Logan en route to a 10-under par 44 in team play to beat Hendrix by one stroke and earn two points toward their team total. The result? A playoff.
On the first hole of the tiebreaker, Logan parked hole 19 of the Ole Miss DGC to put the pressure on Hendrix, who pushed their drive out of bounds on the way to a bogey 4. Ole Miss birdied the next two holes to put the tiebreaker out of reach and complete the comeback.
On the West Coast, the University of Oregon took the win during the first match of the Oregon Collegiate Disc Golf League season.
This coming weekend will give six teams a chance to punch their tickets to the NCDGC, as the Texas Collegiate Championship and the Heartland Collegiate Disc Golf Championship will each be awarding three bids to the big dance.
