Bulldog Golfers Prep For 2005 SEC Men's Golf Championship
MSU Notes
STARKVILLE, Miss. ?€“ Mississippi State's men's golf team treks to St. Simons Island, Ga. for the 2005 Southeastern Conference Championship this weekend, April 15-17 at the par-70, 6,885 yard Seaside Course at Sea Island Golf Club. This year's 54-hole event will mark the 66th time that the SEC Championship has been contested. Sea Island Golf Club has been host of the 12-team field for the past four seasons.
The Bulldogs are coming into this week's season finale after a stretch of three tournaments in a five-week span. The squad has posted two top-five finishes in two of those three tournaments. The Maroon and White brought home the team title at the Homewood Suites Invitational on March 22 and finished fourth at the LSU Spring Invitational on April 3.
Head coach Clay Homan will start the same line up from the previous three competitions. The five-man line up is led by senior Joe Deraney, who leads the team in scoring with a 72.97 average and has posted eight top-20 finishes in 10 tournaments this season. Senior Tim Satow is coming off a 29th-place finish at the Billy Hitchcock Intercollegiate in Auburn, Ala. Sophomore Josh Oller joins Deraney and Satow as the only three Bulldog linksters to compete in all 10 events during the 2004-05 campaign. Sophomore Jake Lambert and freshman Michael Knight round out MSU's line up card.
Last season, State posted a 10th-place finish in the 2004 edition of the SEC Championship. Deraney, a Statesboro, Ga. product led MSU in the final round with a four-under-par 66.
The SEC features seven teams ranked in the top-25 in the Golfweek rankings. Georgia comes into the week ranked No. 2 in the country, followed by No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Auburn, No. 16 Tennessee. Kentucky holds the No. 18 spot, while South Carolina and Alabama are ranked No. 20 and No. 23 respectively. UGA won the 2004 SEC Title, defeating the Gators of UF by one stroke.
The quest for the championship, along with the automatic berth into the 2005 NCAA Regionals will begin at 8 a.m. ET on Friday.
Live scoring of the tournament will be available at www.golfstat.com.