Mississippi State
NCAA Regionals
Bulldog Men Set To Tee Off West Lafayette Regional
May 12, 2024 | Men's Golf
STARKVILLE – The No. 37 Mississippi State's men's golf program is set to tee off its 15th NCAA Championship appearance as a participant in the West Lafayette Regional on Monday.
State is the No. 7 seed in the regional which is set to take place from May 13-15. The three day-event will feature 54 holes of golf at the 7,465 yard, Par-72, Kampen-Cosler Golf Course in West Lafayette, Indiana. The course, which was opened in 1998, played host to the 2011 NCAA Men's Golf National Championships and is the home course of the Purdue Boilermakers.
MSU enters the tournament having earned their sixth straight NCAA selection. Excluding the 2020 tournament, which was not played, the Bulldogs have made the NCAA tournament in each of head coach Dusty Smith's seven years at the helm of the program. The six-year streak marks MSU's longest NCAA tournament streak in program history, and the Bulldogs had never made more than three consecutive regionals prior to Smith's arrival. Last season, MSU won the Morgan Hill Regional in California to advance to the NCAA Championship for just the fourth time in program history.
The West Lafayette Regional is a loaded field that consists of four top-25 programs. The top seed in the regional is an SEC foe in No. 2 Vanderbilt. Joining the Commodores among the ranked squads will be No. 11 Arizona, No. 15 Florida and No. 25 New Mexico. The field will be rounded out by host Purdue, San Diego State, Indiana, Charleston, Stetson, Colorado State, Southern Illinois and Tennessee Tech. There are four conference champions within the regional.
State's lineup will be made up of the six men who competed at the SEC Championships earlier this month. Hunter Logan, Josep Serra, Alejandro Fierro, Garrett Endicott and Pedro Cruz Silva will make up the starting five, with Harrison Davis available for substitution as an alternate.
Four of MSU's six golfers for the week have competed in the NCAA tournament before, with Logan, Endicott, Cruz Silva and Davis all participating in regionals past for the Bulldogs. Serra joins them with postseason experience of his own, having helped lead Nova Southeastern to the Division II National Title last Spring,
Logan leads off the lineup for the Bulldogs. The graduate has had a strong fifth year for the Bulldogs which was started off with a season-opening individual win at the Visit Knoxville Collegiate. Since then, Logan has earned three more top-10 finishes this season, including a runner-up finish at the SEC Championship in his last time on the course. Logan also leads the Bulldogs with 20 rounds of par or better golf this season. At last year's Morgan Hill Regional, Logan contributed to the Bulldogs' winning the regional with a seventh-place finish.
Serra will golf in the number two spot for MSU. He has finished in the top-20 five times this season, including a seventh-place finish at the regular-season-closing Mossy Oak Collegiate.
Fierro is State's lone freshman in the starting five and will be golfing in the number three spot. Fierro has competed in seven tournaments this season for MSU and is averaging 73.76 strokes per round.
Rounding out the lineup are Endicott and Cruz Silva. Endicott has shot 17 par or better rounds this year and has finished inside the top-20 three times this season. Cruz Silva re-enters the starting lineup for MSU for the first time since November after substituting at the SEC tournament earlier this month. The senior earned a season-best sixth-place finish at the Blessings Collegiate earlier this season and shot a career-low 5-under 67 at the Kapolei Invitational in the fall.
The top five teams in each region will advance to the NCAA Championship, which will take place in Carlsbad, California on May 24. The 30 advancing teams will play 54 holes to cut the field down to 15. Those 15 will play one final round to cut the field to eight. Those eight will be placed in a match play tournament to crown the 2024 NCAA Champion with the Championship match taking place on May 29.
Live scoring for the West Lafayette Regional will be available on GolfStat.com.
Players Mentioned
