METTER – The Metter Tigers shut down the most powerful offense in Region 3B-A with a 7-0 shutout of Telfair County Friday.
Sophomore Trace Padgett went six shutout innings, and Pete Nagel struck out two to close it out in the seventh.
C.J. Barone hit a two-run homer in the win.
GSU golf closing regular season
The Georgia Southern golf team has reached its final regular season tournament of the 2010 season as it travels to the Administaff Augusta State Invitational, Saturday and Sunday (April 3-4). The 54-hole event will be contested at Forest Hills Golf Club with 36 holes on Saturday and the final 18 on Sunday. Forest Hills features a par 72, 7,231-yard layout.
“Our goal is to play the best we can and close out the regular season with a good finish,” said head coach Larry Mays. “Team wise, we need to continue working on getting four solid scores counting each round. Individually, we need someone to step up and give us a good performance and compete for the individual win.”
The 18-team 2010 field boasts 11 of the Top 50 teams in the latest Golfstat rankings. Alabama (16), Augusta State (9), Chattanooga (32), Clemson (21), Coastal Carolina, Duke (30), Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Houston, Illinois (11), Kent State (44), Lamar (56), South Carolina (17), Tennessee (27), UNC Greensboro, USC Aiken (33) and Virginia Tech (48) comprise the field challenging for the tournament crown.
Set to compete for Georgia Southern in the tournament will be Florian Sander (Bregenz, Austria), Ryan Zabroske (Alpharetta, Ga.), Spence Fulford (Rocky Mount, N.C.), Matt Deal (Statesboro, Ga.) and Joe Monte (Chantilly, Va.).
GS is coming off a weekend break after finishing 12th in the Schenkel E-Z-GO Invitational, March 19-21, at Forest Heights Country Club. The break gave the Eagles extra practice time to prepare for the tournament.
“We looked at how we can better prepare ourselves for the tournament by focusing on three particular areas: game plan, focus, and patience,” stated Mays. “We need to create a hole-by-hole game plan for the course and stick to it, while focusing on one shot at a time and staying patient throughout the round.”
This is the 10th-consecutive year under Mays the Eagles have made an appearance in the Augusta tournament. GS finished 11th in a 17-team field in 2009. Augusta State took the title in 2009 with a 36-under par final tally, 13 shots ahead of second-place Chattanooga. The annual host has claimed the last two tournaments played at Forest Hills (2005 and 2009), with the event returning to Forest Hills last year.
ASU has won the event 12 times since its inception in 1979. Georgia Southern is one of five teams returning that have claimed a tournament crown in past history. GS won the tournament in 1980, while Augusta State, Coastal Carolina, Clemson and Tennessee have also won the event.
The two-day tournament kicks off with an 8:30 a.m. shotgun start on Saturday, April 3. The third and final round is slated to tee off at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday.
