Saturday, October 14, 2006

JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (Oct. 14, 2006) - With high winds and tough scoring conditions, teams at the ninth annual Bank of Tennessee Intercollegiate at the Ridges were faced with a battle of attrition during Saturday's opening day.

Host school East Tennessee State University eventually finished the day atop the team leaderboard at 6-over-par, leading second place North Carolina by two and Tennessee by three. Individually, ETSU senior and two-time, first-team All-American Rhys Davies (Bridgend, Wales) along with South Carolina's George Bryan IV are tied for first at 4-under-par. Play in the second round was suspended until Sunday morning, with third round play scheduled to begin later in the day.  

"The course was playing so hard today that I thought par would be a good score," said ETSU head coach Fred Warren, whose team will be trying to win its host event for the first time on Sunday. "Obviously, if you are shooting low it feels better, but today it was about surviving. We played solid and I'm proud of the way we played."

At the completion of the first round, ETSU led by as many as seven strokes at 6-under. However, with winds picking up midway through the day, scores soared for every team late in the round and the Bucs eventually finished at 3-over 291. That score was good enough to take the first round lead, as ETSU held a three stroke advantage over Tennessee and TCU.

As the day progressed, teams continued to battle the windy, cool conditions. Davies said the conditions were unique to the Ridges.

"It was as difficult as I've ever seen it out there," Davies said. "It was windy and no doubt that made it tough for everyone. It's great to see our boys at the top of the leaderboard. We're in the hunt."

Along with Davies and Bryan IV, TCU's Jon McLean is third at 2-under, Tennessee's Phillip Pettitt is fourth at 1-under, Virginia Tech's Nick MacDonald is fifth at even-par, and Tennessee's Charles Ford is sixth at 1-over. On the team leaderboard, Tennessee is in third at 10-over, followed by Wake Forest at 13-over and South Carolina at 17-over.

Other ETSU players of note included junior Gareth Shaw (Lisburn, Northern Ireland), who is currently tied for 11th at 3-over, and junior Cian McNamara (Limerick, Ireland), who is tied for 16th at 4-over.

For more on this weekend's tournament and live scoring from the event, visit either Golfstat.com or ETSUBucs.com and click on the men's golf page.