The Georgia State men’s golf team advanced to an NCAA regional for the 12th time since 1999 when it received an at-large selection on Monday.
The Panthers, an 11th seed in the 13-team field, will play 54 holes in Lubbock, Texas on The Rawls Course May 14-16. Georgia State is No. 64 in golfstat.com’s rankings with one win and three more top-three finishes.
Panthers coach Joe Inman said the key to being one of the five teams to advance out of the regional and into the 30-team NCAA Championship for the second consecutive year will be to cut out mistakes.
“We have lots of firepower,” Inman said. “We have played a lot of good holes. Our bad holes have been bad.”
The rest of the regional includes: Texas, Texas Tech, Auburn, North Florida, Cal, Houston, Louisville, Duke, Southeastern Louisiana,California-Irvine and Charleston Southern.
Georgia State will be led by junior J.J. Grey, recently named to Sun Belt Conference first team. Senior Damon Stephenson made the second team and senior Davin White and sophomore Nathan Mallonee were honorable mention.
The team has never played The Rawls Course, but Inman said he expects it to be flat with windy conditions.
Inman said if his players can recognize that they don’t always have to fire at tough pins, and that they can score with their wedges and putters, they can repeat last year’s performance and advance for the sixth time in school history. Last year’s team finished 22nd at the championships, which this year will be held at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla., May 29-June 3.
The top eight teams after 54 holes of stroke play will advance to match play for the tournament’s final two days. The semifinals will be on Tuesday, June 2 and the finals on Wednesday, June 3.
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