Bentley Receives 5th Straight Bid to NCAA East/Atlantic Golf Regional
WALTHAM, Mass. – The field for the 2015 NCAA Division II regional golf tournaments was announced Friday afternoon with Bentley University included for the fifth consecutive year and the tenth time in the last 14 years. The Falcons received an automatic berth by virtue of winning the Northeast-10 Conference Championships last September and were the number four seed in the East Regional.
The East and Atlantic regional tournaments will be held jointly at the Longaberger Golf Club in Nashport, Ohio May 4-6. The top four teams and the top two student-athletes not on a top-four team will advance to the finals, which will be held at the Rock Barn Golf and Spa in Conover, N.C. May 18-22.
The other automatic qualifier in the East Region was Wilmington College of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference. At-large berths went to American International College, Chestnut Hill College, Concordia College (N.Y.), Southern New Hampshire University, Le Moyne College, Nyack College, Roberts Wesleyan College and St. Thomas Aquinas College.
Four of the ten teams are out of the Northeast-10, the same number are from the CACC and there are two from the East Coast Conference.
The ten teams out of the Atlantic Region include automatic qualifiers West Chester University (Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference and Livingstone (Central Intercollegiate Atlantic Association).
Bentley, in coach Mickey Herron's fifth season at the helm, has finished in the top three of nine of 11 tournaments, including victories in three tournaments (Franklin Pierce Invitational, Northeast-10 Championships and the St. James Plantation Invitational). In the latter, the Falcons edged defending East/Atlantic Regional champion Indiana University (Pa.), the number one seed in the Atlantic Region, by two strokes.
All five Falcons who'll be making the trek to Ohio have season stroke averages of 79 or better, with the list headed by senior co-captain Jon Stoddard (Duxbury/Duxbury HS). He's averaged 75.6 this season, a tenth-of-a-point better than his career mark.
Stoddard will be making his third straight trip to the regionals, as will junior Malcolm Oliver (Damariscotta, Maine/Lincoln Academy). Oliver, the individual medalist at last fall's New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championships, is right behind Stoddard with a 75.9.
Also in Herron's top five are senior co-captain Quincy Coulter (Lake Bluff, Ill./Lake Forest HS) and a pair of freshmen who had stroke averages just over 78, Cal Meyers (Richfield, Wisc./Slinger HS) and Brett Chatfield (Attleboro/Bishop Feehan HS). Coulter, who has averaged 79.0 in his final season, will be competing in his second regional tournament.
Bentley, one of five East Region teams who'll be participating in a fifth consecutive regional, has made a steady climb in the standings in its previous four appearances. Herron's team was 17th in 2011, 13th in 2012, tenth in 2013 and sixth a year ago.