In need of a charge in the NCAA Regional's final round

By Herb Page

Head Coach

We are going to need to do something really, really special today at Rich Harvest Farms if we are going to go back to the NCAA Championships.

We are 14 shots out of fifth place with the top five teams advancing, and we are behind some very good teams. And while we know it will take something special, we also know we are capable of doing it.

This team has a lot of firepower at the top of the lineup, and Corey Conners and Taylor Pendrith are both capable of going out and shooting 67 today. We’ll need something like that with our backs against the wall.

To get the round we need, our short games are going to have to be better than they were on Friday when we shot 309 and dropped from a tie for third to a tie for seventh. Chipping and putting has been our sore spot all year long, and it came back to bite us again in that second round. Our short games just were not very good and we didn’t get it done.

Corey shot 73 and he hung in there to bring it back after starting out 3-over. But there was a good score out there for the taking yesterday because the conditions were pretty moderate. After the 2 1/2-hour rain delay at the start, there was no wind and the course was soft.

It will be cold again today – 40’s and 50’s with a chance for more rain. The wind is supposed to be 7 mph.

We are going to go out there with the belief that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I’ve said it before. I’m the eternal optimist. We are capable of doing this. 

We’ve done it before.

I have good memories of back when there were 24-team fields here and the top 10 got in. One year we were in 21st place after day one and worked our way to 14th, then made a charge to finish ninth. It only takes one good round. We are capable of that round, we just haven’t done it yet.