Friday, March 03, 2006

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 3, 2006) - The ETSU men's golf team keeps moving up the national polls.

In the most recent Golfweek poll released earlier this week, the Bucs have moved up to No. 11 fresh off a fifth-place finish in the highly-competitive Puerto Rico Classic last weekend. In addition to the team rankings, junior Rhys Davies (Bridgend, Wales) is currently ranked fourth individually, and sophomore Gareth Shaw (Lisburn, Northern Ireland) ranks 40^th on that list.

Along with the good news from the national polls, Davies has once again been named to the Ben Hogan Award Watch List. The Hogan Award is the most prestigious award in men's college golf, and is presented annually to the top men's NCAA Division I, II or III, NAIA or junior college golfer taking into account all collegiate and amateur competitions in a 12-month span.

A year ago, Davies - who was a PING First-Team All-American - was a finalist for the honor, which means he was one of the final three considered for the award. This year, Davies is joined on the list by fellow first-team picks Ryan Blaum of Duke, Alejandro Canizares of Arizona State, Roberto Castro of Georgia Tech, Matt Every of Florida, Anthony Kim of Oklahoma State, James Lepp of Washington, and Pablo Martin of Oklahoma State.

The Bucs will be in action once again March 5-7 at the Seminole Intercollegiate in Tallahassee, Fla.