Kats set for first national championship event

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Friday the men's golf team will open play at the NCAA Championships for the first time in program history.

After five trips to the regionals, the Bearkats got their breakthrough last week at the Stillwater Regional, taking fourth. Their round will begin at 9:05 a.m., starting on the back nine of the Raptor Course at Grayhawk Golf Club.

"I think their confidence level right ow is really high," said head coach Brandt Kieschnick. "They just endured a test that you can't have any higher than that. They are continuing to confirm the things we do day-to-day, from mental toughness, mental routine and a discipline standpoint that is we do what we do, we are going to be just fine."

The Bearkats will enter the tournament as the No. 24 seed in the 30-team field. The will play with Georgia Tech and Louisville for the first two days of play.

Finals play consists of three days of stroke play on Friday thru Sunday (54 holes), after which the top 15 teams and nine individuals not on an advancing team will be determined.

That is followed by a final day of 18 holes of stroke play on Monday, May 31 to determine the top eight teams that will advance to match play as well as the 72-hole individual champion. The team national champion will be determined by a match-play format that will consist of quarterfinals and semifinals conducted on Tuesday, June 1, followed by finals on Wednesday, June 2.

While this season's schedule was structured a little bit different than in past years, because of some COVID restrictions, Kieschnick has also built his schedule to have his team compete against some of the best programs in the country. Even with this season's limited schedule, the Bearkats faced seven other teams competing at this year's championship and 14 in the last two seasons.

Kieschnick thinks the confidence from finishing fourth at the regional as well as having faced nearly half of these teams over the last two years will help his squad this week.

"We want to be one of the best teams in the country, if not the best team and to do that we have to challenge ourselves and compete against the best," Kieschnick said. "We've played these teams, we've seen these teams, we've beaten these teams and they've beaten us. We know what it takes to put ourselves in front. We've done it before, we did it at regionals, and we just have to keep doing that, because these are phenomenal teams here."

To go along with competing at this year's NCAA Regional, several of the Kats have NCAA experience. This will be senior William Holcomb's fourth NCAA event after playing in three regionals in 2018, 2019 and 2021. Luis Carrera is competing in his third postseason event.

"I feel pretty good. I have confidence in my team and hopefully they have confidence in me," Carrera said. "I think we are a pretty solid team and we demonstrated that at regionals. I just feel like we have nothing to lose and everything to win, so we just have to go out there, feel comfortable, stripe it, and everything will be good."

Southland Co-Golfer of the Year Paul Chaplet is getting his first NCAA postseason experience this year, but the setting isn't new to him. He played two and a half years at Arizona State before transferring to Sam Houston, so he brings some course knowledge to the team.

"To me it helps, because I already know my lines," Chaplet said. "I've played the course plenty of times so I feel at home. Hopefully I gave the guys some good advice. Hopefully it will help them tomorrow."

Despite this being his first NCAA championship experience, Chaplet is no stranger to the big stage. In 2016 he became the second youngest player to compete at the Masters when he tee'd it up at the age of 16 at Augusta National.

After the early start to play on Friday, the Kats will have the afternoon start on Saturday, where they will go off at 12:25. The pairings will be reshuffled for Sunday's round based on the scores after 36 holes.

Kats set for first national championship event

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Players Mentioned

Luis Carrera

Paul Chaplet

William Holcomb

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