Bentley Receives 6th Straight Bid to NCAA East/Atlantic Golf Regional
WALTHAM, Mass. – The field for the 2015 NCAA Division II regional golf tournaments has been announced with Bentley University included for the sixth consecutive year and the 11th time in the last 15 years. The Falcons were an at-large selection and the number five seed in the East Regional.
The East and Atlantic regional tournaments will be held jointly at the Timber Banks Golf Club May 2-4. The top five teams and the top two student-athletes not on a top-five team will advance to the finals, which will be held at the Green Valley Ranch in Denver, Colo. May 17-21.
The automatic qualifiers in the East Region were Le Moyne College from the Northeast-10 Conference and Wilmington University (Del.) from the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference.
The other at-large selections, in addition to the Falcons, are Assumption College, Chestnut Hill, Concordia (N.Y.), Le Moyne College, Post University, Roberts Wesleyan and St. Thomas Aquinas.
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 Mercyhurst University (Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, Shepherd (Mountain East Conference) and Chowan (Central Intercollegiate Atlantic Association).
Bentley, in coach Mickey Herron's sixth season at the helm, has finished in the top three of eight of 12 tournaments, including a victory in the Franklin Pierce Division II Fall Invitational. The Falcons have played at Timber Banks twice this season, placing fifth in the season-opening Le Moyne Fall Preview and third earlier this month in the Mike Bello Invitational.
Herron will take a young team to the regional with senior captain Malcolm Oliver (Damariscotta, Maine/Lincoln Academy) the only upperclassman who'll be making the trip. He'll be joined by a pair of sophomores, Cal Meyers (Richfield, Wisc./Slinger HS) and Brett Chatfield (Attleboro/ Bishop Feehan HS), and two freshmen, Doug Kulikowski (Pittsford, N.Y./Pittsford Sutherland HS) and Chris Simione (Cheshire, Conn./Cheshire HS).
Oliver, who'll be making his fourth trip to the regional, has had an outstanding final season, posting a best-in-school-history 73.3 stroke average, including 72.8 in his last six rounds. He's won three tournaments this season, including the New Englands and the recent Bentley Newport Classic.
Meyers and Chatfield will be competing in their second straight regional tournament. Meyers has a 76.7 stroke average, including 74.1 since March 18, and Chatfield has a 79.0 average. Kulikowski is second on the team with a 76.6, and Simione's rookie season has seen him post a 77.6.
Bentley, one of three East Region teams who'll be participating in a sixth consecutive regional (Wilmington, St. Thomas Aquinas), finished 13th last year after a sixth-place showing in 2014.