MORRISTOWN, TN – Lincoln Memorial had the top three finishers and that propelled the Railsplitters to the team championship of the Walters State Fall Golf Classic on Tuesday.

LMU was one under as a team on Tuesday and finished with an overall score of 292-287=579. Carson-Newman finished second with a tally of 304-301=605 and Roane State was third at 294-321=615. The rest of the team finishes included Tusculum (311-310=621), host team Walters State (314-315=629), Covenant (310-320=630), Cleveland State (335-317=652), Southwest Virginia (356-362=718), Patrick Henry (375-372=747) and Pellissippi State (413-371=784).

Weather conditions at The Country Club on Tuesday were exactly opposite of Monday's opening round as sunshine and warner temperatures allowed several players to drastically improve their scores. Twenty eight golfers shot below what they did on Monday.

Frazier Laird was the leader after day one and held on in round two to win the event with a score of 69-71=140. Teammates Jantai Malataev (72-71=143) and Jamie Dean (74-73=147) were right behind him to place second and third. Noah Cambridge of Carson-Newman shaved six strokes off his opening score which allowed him to finish fourth with a score of (78-72=150). The Eagles' Nick Daugherty finished fifth with a score of 77-74=151 after claiming a scorecard playoff over Tusculum's Blake Williams who also shot 151.

The Senators finished in fifth place and were paced by Bowen Brantley (76-78=154) who finished tied for 11^th place with teammate Sloan Brooks who was playing as an individual and fired a 74-80=154. Blake Woody (78-79=157) tied for 20^th with Jack Leach (82-75=157) who was also playing as an individual. Ashton Pratt carded a 79-79=158 to tie for 24^th place, Ian Kinsey improved his score by two strokes 81-79=160 to tie for 30^th. Jonas Rayfield shot 80-84=164 to place 35^th and Nick Talley rounded out the Senators scoring at 84-82=166 to tie for 39^th place.

"Obviously, our team didn't perform to what we thought we would," first-year Walters State head coach Tony Patterson said. "We were a little disappointed in that. It was tough weather yesterday but everyone had to play in it. We are going to get better and we aren't where we want to be but we have plenty of time to get there."

The Senators will conclude their Fall schedule on October 23^rd and 24^th when they participate in the Roane State Classic at The Oak Ridge Country Club. 

"There will be a lot of good teams there and there will be a lot of the teams we will be competing against in next Spring's district tournament," Patterson said. "There were seven teams in our district who were here and we finished second among those teams behind Roane State. They have a really fine golf program and they are really good. It's been Roane State and Walters State in the district the last several years and looks like it will be again hopefully for us."

Walters State has only two sophomores and the rest of squad is comprised of six freshmen. Patterson said he is optimistic about the future of the Senators' program. "We aren't where we hopefully will be in May but I have a great bunch of guys who are going to work hard to get there."

 Rob Harvey

Walters State Community College

Sports Information Director

Cell: (423) 779-8880

Email: sportsinfo@ws.edu

Website: www.ws.edu/athletics