Wednesday, May 16, 2007

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (May 17, 2006) - The 13th-ranked ETSU men's golf team begins its quest for a 16th trip to the NCAA Championships Thursday, as the Bucs enter first round play in the NCAA West Regional hosted by Arizona State at the Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Ariz.

            The 27-team field will be battling to finish in the Top 10, which assures a trip to the NCAA national championship scheduled to be played in Williamsburg, Va., May 30-June 2, at the Golden Horseshoe Golf Club. The Bucs are hoping to improve on what was a memorable trip to the NCAAs last year, when the team made the NCAA Championships in Sunriver, Oreg., and finished 21^st in the nation.

ETSU senior Rhys Davies (Bridgend, Wales), currently the No. 1 ranked player in the nation and a finalist for the Ben Hogan Award, will lead a young ETSU squad into its third regional in as many years. Along with Davies, A-Sun Coach of the Year Fred Warren boasts a lineup that includes All-A-Sun selections such as junior Gareth Shaw (Lisburn, Northern Ireland) and freshman Seamus Power (Waterford, Ireland), who was the A-Sun individual tournament champion and freshman of the year.

ETSU has a strong history of NCAA success, having reached regional play in 15 of the last 19 years, and making the NCAA Championship 15 times in the history of the program. In fact, the Bucs enjoyed national finishes as high as sixth in 1975, third in 1996 and ninth in 2001.

Other teams selected for the West regional include, by seed: No. 1 UCLA, No. 2 Stanford, No. 3 UNLV, No. 4 USC, No. 5 ETSU, No. 6 BYU, No. 7 Arizona State, No. 8 Wake Forest, No. 9 Arizona and No. 10 UC-Irvine.

For more on ETSU men's golf and NCAA postseason play, visit ETSUBucs.com.