By Harrison Leone
Assitant Sports Editor
A season’s worth of training, effort and preparation for the golf team boils down to one tournament. The Atlantic 10 championship tournament, will take place April 26-28 at the Heron Bay Golf Club in Coral Springs, Fla.
The upcoming tournament will mark the first time the Bonnies have been to Heron Bay since their 11th place finish at A-10s a year ago. Coach John Powers said inclement weather at last year’s event played a part in the team’s last-place finish.
“Last year, the weather was obviously really bad,” Powers said. “If the weather’s nice this year, it will be difficult to compare the way the course played then to the way it will this time around.”
George Washington University won the 2012 A-10 Championship. The Colonials finished two strokes ahead of Charlotte and Xavier to eke out the victory.
Powers said he expects the same teams that performed well last season to continue their strong play. Powers also cited A-10 newcomer Virginia Commonwealth as one of the top schools in the field.
“VCU, Xavier, Charlotte, Dayton and Richmond all compete at very, very high levels,” Powers said. “In order for us to compete with those schools, we’ll have to play our best golf.”
Outside the top tier of the conference, Powers said the teams are roughly evenly matched and that the field is wide open.
“Beyond those top four schools, anything is possible,” Powers said. “We’re very competitive with schools like Temple and George Washington. We were able to get a win against La Salle last week, too, so we have a decent record of success against A-10 opponents. I think we’re in a better position than we were this time last year.”
Powers stressed in a sport such as golf what matters is not necessarily the competition but how well your own team performs at a given event.
“At the end of the day, you’re playing against the golf course,” Powers said. “You just have to do the best you can as a team, you can’t scheme against one team in particular.”
The line-up for A-10s has not been officially set and will not be until this afternoon, Powers said.
“As the week rolls on, we’ll continue to do some evaluation,” Powers said. “There are three guys who are definitely going, but after that it’s up for grabs. We’ll see who is giving us the best rounds. At this point in the season, we’re at the stage where all that really matters is results, as opposed to who’s improving the most or who’s showing the best form.”
Last weekend, the Bonnies concluded their regular season with a fourth-place finish out of 10 schools at the Longwood Invitational in Farmville, Va. The Bonnies shot a collective 909 over the course of the three-round event, good for a tie with the Delaware and eight strokes behind victor and future A-10 member George Mason.
“I was impressed with by the way our team played,” Powers said. “We played two out of the three rounds very well.”
Senior Brian McKenna and freshmen Josh Stauffer anchored the Bonnies. McKenna and Stauffer tied for sixth and 26th respectively. Senior Greg Horvath had the low score of the third round, carding a 72 in the final leg of the meet.
“Greg really came up huge for us in the final round,” Powers said. “That’s the essence of team golf right there: a guy whose score didn’t count in the first two rounds still has a shot to help the team. Without him shooting that great number in the final round, we would not have finished where we did.”
