Spartans Travel To Hartford Hawks Invitational
9/26/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Sept. 26, 2008
Spartanburg, S.C. - The USC Upstate men's golf team is set to participate in the 2008 Hartford Hawks Invitational hosted by the University of Hartford Sunday through Tuesday at Ballymeade Country Club in North Falmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod.
Upstate plays its third tournament in as many weeks at the Hawks Invitational, and will look to improve on its ninth-place showing at last week's Sea Trail Intercollegiate. The Spartans were third after the first two rounds of play at Sea Trail, but limped home with the ninth-place showing despite consistent play throughout the three rounds. Upstate will again have the full team with the return of Josh Gallman to the lineup after the standout junior missed last week's tournament after participating in the wedding of a close friend. Gallman will be joined in the lineup by Baxter Culler, Tyler Tucker, Michael Lawrence and Bryan Otis.
"Having Josh back this week is not only a boost for the scoring potential we have, but also from a morale standpoint for the team," said Upstate head coach Todd Lawton. "Baxter (Culler), Michael (Lawrence) and Tyler (Tucker) have shown their strength to the team, but Josh has earned his position at No. 1."
Upstate is one of 23 teams participating in the 4th Annual Hawks Invitational and will be paired with Rutgers, Binghamton and Texas-Pan American in the first and second rounds. The field for the 54-hole tournament is the strongest the Spartans have played in the history of the program. Six of the 23 teams in the field played in the NCAA Regionals last year with N.C. State, SMU and Georgia State participating in the NCAA East Regional and TCU, Baylor and Loyola playing in the NCAA Central Regional.
"Individually, we can play as well as anyone in the field," said Lawton. "From a team standpoint, everyone has to play well all three days and have all five scores worthy of being counted. We can't get scores from just three guys. We have talked about that and worked on it the last week. We need to be smarter in how aggressive we are on the course, not to play conservative, but to play smarter."
Upstate has had a solid start to the 2008-09 season. The Spartans finished second at the Rutgers Invitational two weeks ago and was in prime position for another top-5 finish last week at Sea Trail before several teams moved in front of Upstate in the final round. Upstate placed three players in the top-11 at Rutgers with Culler finishing second, Gallman finishing fourth and Otis finishing 11th. Culler led the Spartans at Sea Trail, finishing 11th. Tucker also had a solid outing, finishing 16th.
