Tag Archives: Southland Conference

Let The Games Begin!

October 14, 2012   fluegel

Freshman Traditions Council member, Sarah Bizzell, was one of many Traditions Council members who put in extra time on Sunday to help create homecoming decorations.

Homecoming week starts this Monday for Stephen F. Austin State University.

The student run organization, Traditions Council, has run homecoming since their formation in 2006. They are responsible for planning and executing a majority of the Homecoming events.

Homecoming court is decided on a point system. Candidates will get points for participating in events in addition to the points they get for popular vote. The top three candidates for Senior King and Queen will then have an interview with a board of faculty and staff members. The interview counts for 25% of the total points, making it the first time that the king and queen will not be solely decided by students.

The Involvement Center is also offering a “board game” style schedule that, once completed, will enter students into a raffle to win 250 dollars or a Kindle Fire. They can pick up the schedule in the Involvement Center. Students take the schedules to the Homecoming Headquarters set up at every event where their “board game” will get the corresponding sticker for that event.

This year’s theme is “Let the Games Begin.”  Decorations will go up Sunday night. There will be characters from different games placed throughout the campus.

“Each day will have its own game theme and the decorations will be dispersed across campus,” said Nicole Lejeune, Vice President of Traditions Council.

The themes for each day (in no particular order) are Pokemon, Scrabble, Monopoly, Dominos, Candyland, and Madden.

 

Monday

Monday morning the Homecoming week starts off with Opening Ceremonies at 10 am at Surfin’ Steve. The court candidates will be announced and the fountain water in Surfin’ Steve will be dyed purple. Online voting on Axes, SFA’s new social network, will be open until 5 p.m. To vote online students can go through MySFA. Here is how students can reach online voting.

  1. Login to MySFA
  2. Click on the “my services” tab
  3. Scroll down and click on the “AXES: The Web Portal for Student Involvement at SFA” link located in the middle of the page.
  4. Create an account (new users only)
  5. Find the link that states “2012 Homecoming Court Election ends 10/15/2012 5:00 PM Vote Now!”
  6. Click “Vote Now!”
  7. Vote for your desired candidates
  8. Students can only vote once, so students who vote online will not be allowed to vote in person.

The organizations competing for the Spirit Organization Award will be announced during the Homecoming Kickoff. Organization boards (ply wood that is decorated by competing organizations) will be presented. The Spirit Organization Award will be decided by a point system just like Homecoming Court. Organizations will gain points by participating in and winning events. Then Kickoff will shift gears. Participating organizations will run game themed tables in the plaza. Students who participate will earn raffle tickets to enter drawings for movies and electronics, like iPod speakers and a printer.

 

Tuesday

There will be a blood drive starting at 9 a.m. and going until 5 p.m. Organizations and court candidates can give blood or have others give blood in their name to earn points. Physical voting for Homecoming candidates on the plaza will start at 10 a.m. A validated student ID must be presented in order to vote.

The day ends with the Amazing Traditions Race, a campus scavenger hunt. The winning team earns the prize of 100 dollars.

 

Wednesday

Voting for Homecoming Court on the plaza continues until 2 p.m. when voting is stopped for counting. The campus recreational center invites all students to come by and tie dye a shirt at 4.

Homecoming Court candidates and organizations can gain points by participating and winning in the ODK (Omicron Delta Kappa, Leadership Honor Society) Trivia Bowl at 5. Groups of 4 to 5 students compete against each other in a battle to see who knows the most trivia.

 

Thursday

The organizations will be competing with each other once again at 2 p.m. on the plaza for the Big Event Food Drive Build. All through the week organizations will be turning in cans for the food drive into the Involvement Center. They will use those cans to build an object pertaining to the theme selected by the judges.

At 5 o’clock the Homecoming Court will be revealed at the Cheer Competition/Court Reveal in the Grand Ballroom. There will be ten students in the court, a duke and a duchess from each class plus a king and queen from the senior class. After the court is reveled organizations will compete by performing their cheer in order to obtain more points in the race for the Spirit Organization Award.

 

Friday

The day starts off with two golf tournaments hosted by the Alumni Association. The tournament for traditional golf will be held at 10:30 in the morning while the tournament of disc (Frisbee) golf will be held at 2 in the afternoon.

At 8:30 p.m. the torch light parade will begin. Glow sticks will be handed out to students. The king and queen and the court will lead the parade with a torch in hand. They will march from Surfin’ Steve down Raguet Street to Starr. From Starr they will head towards the intramural fields to the spot where the bonfire will be held.

After the bonfire is lit there will be a Bonfire Pep-Rally. During the pep rally Lumberjack’s head football coach J.C. Harper will come and talk to all the students and the winner of the Spirit Organization Award will be announced.

At 9:30 after the pep rally local Texas Country star, Aaron Watson, will hold a concert on the intramural fields, hosted by Student Activities Association.

 

Saturday

The final day of the Homecoming week starts at 8 in the morning with a 5k run at the parking lot behind Schlief Tennis Complex on the corner of Wilson and Starr.

Then at 10 o’clock the Homecoming parade will be held on Main Street downtown. Campus and local organizations along with the Homecoming Court will be on floats supporting their organizations and local businesses.

The final event of homecoming will be the football game at 3 in the afternoon as the SFA Lumberjacks face the Nicholls State University Colonels. The Lumberjacks come into the game as the favorite. Lumberjacks are 2-4 (1-1 in conference) while the Colonels are 1-5 (0-2 in conference). Both teams are coming off a game from the same opponent. Lumberjacks played Sam Houston Bearkats on October 6th and lost by eight points. This past weekend the Colonels faced off against the Bearkats and lost 41-0. During half time the homecoming court will be introduced a final time to all those present at the game.

 

For a full schedule of all the events and information or forms to register for the parade visit the Involvement Center or Homecoming web page at http://www.sfasu.edu/studentaffairs/94.asp.

 

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Battle of the Piney Woods

October 08, 2012   fluegel

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Pop a Top to Win

October 01, 2012   fluegel

Every May Schools from The Southland Conference submit pop-tops for the Ronald McDonald House.

Pop-tops (or pop tabs) are the figure-eight things on the top of aluminum cans. The Ronald McDonald House does not accept cans because they are too hard to store. They take these pop-tops to a recycling center where they are weighed.

The recycling center then gives the local chapter of the Ronald McDonald House a check for the value of the donation. These values vary widely, but the Upper Midwest region of the Ronald McDonald House raised around $30,000.

The Ronald McDonald House is a charity of 30,000 volunteers and staff members that helps the families of sick children. According to their website,

“We provide families stability and resources so they can keep their child healthy and happy. Whether those problems involve how to stay near and support a hospitalized child, how to afford staying together in another city while a child is undergoing treatment, or even getting basic medical and dental care in a vulnerable community. We not only help families address these problems, we provide solutions for these and other issues related to the health and well being of children…” (http://rmhc.org/what-we-do/)

The Student Athletes Advisory Committee (SAAC) of each school in the Southland Conference is in charge of collecting the pop-tops. SAAC is an organization led by student athletes from each athletic team that gets together twice a month to discuss problems with players and coordinate volunteer work. In May each school submits their pop-tops where they are weighed separately.

Last year Sam Houston State University won. The year before that Sam Houston beat SFA by half a pound. Sam Houston always wins.

Sam Houston won both years by collecting 158 pounds of pop-tops. Each pop-tops weighs about .5 grams. This means that Sam Houston collected just over 143,000 pop-tops.

How can SFA beat that?

Last year SFA collected 27 pounds or 25,000 pop-tops, so 143,000 may sound like a daunting number, but If every SFA student turned in twelve pop-tops before the end of the school year SFA would have accrued 156,000 pop-tops or 172 pounds of pop-tops.

How can you help?

Spread the word. One of the biggest problems about this competition is that average SFA student doesn’t know about it. Senior pre Vet student, Nicole Lejeune did not find about it until a couple weeks ago, and she has been here for three years. She’s not the only one though, Meaghan Kelly (senior and education major), Jessica Sisser (senior and interior design major), and Richard Haifley (senior and radio/TV major) had not even heard of the competition until they were asked about it.

There are opportunities to help SFA win all over the place. You can collect pop-tops from your friends, roommates, family, and the Nacogdoches community at anytime. Asking your parents save all their pop-tops would be a great way to collect them.

Carla Oliver, junior and education major, is very passionate about this competition.

“I don’t like that we lose to Sam Houston. And any way that I can be a true Lumberjack and try and demolish them in anyway, that’s what I want to do,” said Carla.

Where do you turn the pop-tops in?

Turning in pop-tops is allows students to help the Lumberjacks win and help a family in need.Students can turn all pop-tops into the involvement center located in the rotunda of the Student Center or directly to the right when entering the student center on the side facing North Street.

Listen to what Allison Flake, President of the Student Athletes Advisory Committee, and Carla Oliver had to say about the competition.

Sources

The Ronald McDonald House Website: http://rmhc.org/how-you-can-help/pop-tab-collections/

fluegeldd@gmail.com

 

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SFA Golfer Pursues Professional Career

May 05, 2012   Michael Smith

When it’s time to graduate, most seniors know the career they want to pursue and will use the knowledge that they acquired in college to seek that career. But what about the people who don’t use their majors, or don’t want to pursue their studies, and would rather pursue lifelong dreams of being professional athletes? One of those people at SFA is Stetson McMillan.

McMillan, who is finishing up his fourth and final year at SFA as a psychology major, has no intentions on pursuing his major, but has every intention on pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a professional golfer.

“It has always been my dream to play professional golf, but now the time has come where I have to actually try it, and it is pretty exciting but also scary at the same time,” McMillan said.

McMillan grew up in Lindale, Texas, where for the majority of his childhood he played competitive baseball at a high level.

“I played baseball ever since I was little and all the way until high school and just played golf for the fun of it. It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I picked up golf and got serious about it,” McMillan said.

Professional golf is unlike most sports, you don’t get drafted, you don’t play for teams, and you don’t automatically have things paid for according to McMillan.

“The thing people don’t realize is how hard golf is to pursue as a career. Not only is it very expensive, but unless you’re one of the best players in the country, sponsors and help with money are very hard to find,” McMillan said. “I have been fortunate enough to find a few sponsors to help me out with the costs of traveling around and that will help out so much.”

Another big part of professional golf, according to McMillan, is finding club sponsors to supply you with equipment and apparel to play with.

“Finding equipment sponsors is usually tough but I was able to work out a deal with Adams golf who is going to supply me with clubs when I need them which will be a big help. I also was able to work out a deal with them for my apparel so I have been very lucky so far with money help,” McMillan said.

Most don’t know what goes into the steps of turning professional in golf, but according to SFA head coach Trey Schroeder, it is not easy task.

“It is very tough out there on the mini-tours, not only is it very expensive, but if you’re not winning or getting top fives week in and week out, you won’t be making any money. I tried to make it for a couple of years after I graduated and did ok, but I just wasn’t making enough money,” Schroeder said. “But Stetson has been fortunate enough to get more back up then I ever had, so he should have a little better chance at being successful.”

With all the talk about how hard it is to just prepare to become a professional golfer, according to McMillan, it only gets harder when you get out there and compete.

“Since I have already got all the money stuff taken care of, my toughest task will definitely be just competing with all the guys out there. It is a completely different level of golf and now it is not only for trophies and rankings, but it is for money and my career. I know I have the game to compete out there but it is just going to be quite an experience,” McMillan said.

McMillan will be kicking off his professional career this summer in May, where he will attempt to qualify for a PGA tour event in Dallas, Texas call the Byron Nelson championship.

Stetson McMillan speaks on career

 

 

 

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Schroeder signs six for 2012-2013 season

May 03, 2012   Steven McLeroy

The SFA Men’s golf team said farewell to four seniors Tuesday night at the athletic banquet. The banquet was held in the Student Center in the Grand Ballroom with SFA’s athletic director Robert Hill presenting multiple awards.

With four talented individuals leaving the golf team, head coach Trey Schroeder had his hands full with a busy offseason. Finding recruits to come play for a lower ranked division-one team is one of the hardest things to due.

During the offseason, Schroeder went above and beyond and acquired some of the most-top notch amateur standouts in the world including his first recruit ever out of the states.

Baxter Ward, New South Wales, Ausralia, is coming to SFA with an impressive amateur resume.

Ward comes to Nacogdoches from Australia where he has left a paper trail of success in his wake. Ward has won 13 tournaments during his amateur career, including the past four Armidale Junior Championship tournaments, and the Cowboys Tournament Championship in Dallas earlier this year.

In 2010 Ward tied for 33rd at the Australian Open National Ranking Tournament, and qualified for the QLD Men’s Strokeplay Championship. He also made the cut for the 2010 NSW Amateur and Gary Player Championships as well.

Joining Ward, Schroeder also signed Texas amateur standout Major Monzingo from Trophy Club, Texas.

Monzingo comes to SFA as one of the top golfers in the state of Texas. A former 4A regional champion and state runner-up, Monzingo has earned UIL and HSGS All-State honors. A five-time TJGT Champion, Monzingo is a Texas-Oklahoma Junior Champion, as well as the Club Champion at the Trophy Club Country Club.

The true definition of a student-athlete, Monzingo is also a standout in the classroom having been named to the UIL Academic All-District, All-Regional and All-State teams. He has also received HSGS Academic All-State honors twice during his career at Byron Nelson High School.

“We are very fortunate to be adding two talented young men to our program,” said head coach Trey Schroeder. “They are not only talented on the golf course but they are also quality young men. Major has proven himself over the past seasons, and has shown that he can win. He will have an immediate impact for our squad. Baxter brings quite a bit of international experience to our program, from Australia where he has won some big tournaments.”

The third standout Schroeder added to the roster for the 2012-2013 season is Brady Ellis from Mansfield, Texas. Not only a good student in the classroom Ellis brings a lot to the table for the Lumberjack team.

Ellis received all-district honors all four years of his high school career. With three  TJGT wins under his belt and all-state honors in just his senior season alone, Ellis is coming in with all the momentum.

Ellis played in the UIL 5A state tournament the past two years posting a top 15 finish his junior year and topping that this year with a seventh place finish with scores of 71 74.

The three other signees for SFA this year are Bryce, Luke and Bradley. With six signees in one season Schroeder has gambled with money and scholarships counting on these six to make an immediate impact.

“I have sent out emails to all of them explaining what I am expecting of each and everyone one of them next year,” Schroeder said. “I expect all of them to compete over the summer and play in as many events as they can leading into the fall season.”

When the Lumberjacks return back to school in the fall, qualifying for tournaments will begin immediately. Schroeder will be looking for talent, composure and competitiveness. A player with those three aspects will make our traveling team for next year and we will come out on top.

Schroeder talks about 2012-2013 season!


sm.mcleroy@gmail.com

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Piney Woods Four Ball comes back to Nacogdoches

April 30, 2012   Michael Smith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_l1hN_3Gds&list=UUfm43e2PMGAY5xv59aKT9fw&index=1&feature=plpp_video

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Lady Jack Golf Ends Season

April 30, 2012   Michael Smith

After the first round struggles for the Lady Lumberjacks in the conference tournament, they were in desperate need for a solid last two rounds to try and get back in the tournament. With their first round score of 338, the girls were in the last place eighth position.

“Last place did not feel too good but we knew that we had a lot better games than what we showed, and we knew that we could get ourselves back into the tournament,” Coach Stefanie Maynard said.

The girls once again got off to rough start and ended the second round with a 331 score still keeping them in last place for the tournament.

“We were pretty disappointed with it but we did get better in round two and we just wanted to make sure we finished out the tournament strong, and mainly just try to get out of last place because we were only five back of 7th,” Coach Trey Schroder said.

The ladies had their best day of the tournament in round three shooting a team total of 322. A score that was 15 shots better than the seventh place team McNeese state which allowed the Lady Jacks surpass the Cowboys and place seventh for the tournament.

“We weren’t very happy with it but at least we didn’t get last which was the goal we made for ourselves going into the last day,” Sophomore Aliece Anderson said.

Now that the conference tournament is over and the ladies season is over until next fall, Coach Maynard says, It is time for rebuilding and getting better.

“We only had five girls this year, which makes it tough to compete week in and week out because we were taking the same girls to every tournament whether any of them were struggling or not,” Maynard said. “Most other teams we compete against have 10 to 15 girls on their teams which gives them the opportunity to bring the 5 that are playing the best, but we are planning to have quite a few girls come in next year so that will help us a lot next season,” Maynard said. The Lady Jacks do not have any seniors this year so they will not be losing anybody, but are also planning on bring in five or six girls next season to help rebuild the program.

“We don’t have anybody graduating which will leave the team with upper classman and experience, but getting all these freshman girls will help us be more competitive as a team in practice and at the tournaments,” Sophomore Sara Jones said.

The SFA girls golf program will only be going into their fourth year of existence next season, so a disappointing season like the one they had this year wasn’t surprising according to coach Schroeder, but it was still disappointing.

“It’s always tough to get a program started but this next year is a big one for us, we need to get this program moving in the right direction and I think we are making the proper steps to do so,” Schroeder said.

The pressure of having a successful program is already tough, but for having only three years under their belts, the Lady Jacks program is destined for improvement and is excited about their upcoming seasons according coach’s Schroeder and Maynard.

“We have a lot of improving to do, but with the moves we are making in the off season with all the recruiting, and our girls being committed to our program, I think we will have no problems getting better,” Maynard said.

“It’s going to be a fun season, our upper classman are going to be pushed by our new girls coming in and it should get real competitive, and that will make us much better in the long run,” Schroeder said.

 

Coach Schroeder Interview-http://youtu.be/eICt34_gSnU

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Smith Weekly Tips takes Youtube by Storm

April 26, 2012   Steven McLeroy

The stress of school work and golf practice everyday can be a tiring down process. Being on the road seven out of nine weeks is a grueling process for anyone, especially a college senior.

Michael Smith is two weeks away from graduating from Stephen F. Austin University with a degree in Journalism.  To add to his resume, he has also helped lead the Lumberjacks to several collegiate victories.

Trying to stay focused on school with the golf season going on can be a very difficult task. With the spring golf season down to its last tournament Smith has become well-known throughout the collegiate athletes with his new YouTube hit videos.

Over the past several weeks Smith has been performing a parody of Michael Breed golf tips.

Breed is a highly respected golf instructor who has been giving golf tips on the Golf Channel for several years now. His show the “Golf Fix,” has impacted every level of golfer. Breed comes out with new instructions of teaching every day.

Being a high level golfer and watching the show Smith came up with the idea that he would start doing his own videos of golf tips in a comical way.

Smith’s first video became viral during Mid-February. Watching Breeds’ latest show on how to hit the “flop” or an exciting high soft golf shot, Smith immediately went to the camera to start his acting career.

“Once I saw Breeds’ video I had this idea to do comical lessons to try and make my friends and team mates laugh. I would go off what Breed would say in his shows then I would totally just flip what he said to do,” Smith said.

What started out as a joke, Smith quickly received immediate feedback from friends and fellow classmates.

“All of the responses were the about the same, everyone couldn’t stop laughing and they wanted more. So I did what the people wanted and started doing them weekly,” Smith said.

Smith Weekly Tips was born and was spreading like wildfire. The first video received a number of views, and when the Lumberjack squad traveled to golf tournaments players from other universities were asking for advice. Once the Lumberjacks returned home from South Carolina Smith recorded his second video of, “How to hit the long ball.”

The video contains a two minute instruction on how to gain distance on your tee shots during the round. While recording the instructional video Smith accidentally hits the golf ball in the house and nails the wall.

“We were about to do another take since I accidentally hit the ball into the wall but after I watched it, it was perfect,” Smith said.

The second video was an immediate hit. It doubled the views of the first video in two days. Also, it attracted not only young stereotypes but older people were starting to comment.

“Im not a very good golfer but the videos just make me forget about all the issues I have and makes me laugh,” Brian Day, amateur golfer said.

Since the second video Smith has recorded two more videos with his most recent one coming out on April 19. With some of his fellow teammates struggling to get out of the bunkers in golf , Smith decided he would poke fun of them and make a video.

Joking and laughing in the video Smith recorded his funniest video yet with hundreds of people replying back via text and facebook to Smith.

“It was crazy within an hour of posting the video I got about ten text messages that said best video yet or I can’t stop laughing,” Smith said.

With all the hype around the videos Smith is considering sending an application into the Golf Channel to see if he can team up with Michael Breed one day.


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Lady Jacks Conference Tournament

April 17, 2012   Michael Smith

Sophomores Sara Jones and Aliece Anderson get ready for conference tournament

After a severely disappointing season, according to Coach Trey Schroeder,  , the time has come for the lady lumberjack golf team to compete in its Southland Conference championship. This Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Blanco, Texas, the ladies will compete in a 54- hole championship in an effort to move on to  regionals.

“We have been struggling all year, but I feel like if there was ever a chance for us to do something special, this would be it,” Assistant coach Stefanie Maynard said. It’s a true championship style test, it won’t be a blow out, birdie fest style of course that only favors the front runners. It’s the type of course that the underdogs need so hopefully we can do something with it,”

This championship style golf course in Blanco, Vaaler Creek, has been known to be quite the test for players, according to sophomore Sara Jones.

“It’s a very hard course, it’s pretty long for us and the greens have a lot of slope in them so it makes putting very hard, and iron placement will be key,” Sophomore Sara Jones. It’s also real tight off the tee so we are going to have to be smart from the tee boxes,”.

The lady jacks are knowingly going into the tournament without the biggest of expectations, but they are definitely going into the tournament with hopes of surprising people. All year long, golf teams all of over the nation compete in many tournaments trying to get their ranking high enough for post season play. But even for the teams that have had bad seasons, still have that last chance of reaching the post season. In each conference, the crowned champions all move on to the regional tournament no matter how good their yearly rankings are. So that is what the lady lumberjacks are going to try and achieve this week.

“We know that we aren’t the best team on paper, we know we haven’t had the best of season, but that’s the great thing about the conference tournament, we still have a chance to do something great,” Head Coach Trey Schroeder said.

This year is the first year that the Southland Conference golf championship are being held at neutral site, in the past years they have been hosted by each of the teams in the conference, always giving one team home field advantage for the tournament.

“It’s a much better format for the tournament, having a home field advantage is not a good thing for a conference champion,” Maynard said. It should be the toughest of tests for each and every team and this year that is what we have. Vaaler Creek is a very tough test for the girls, scores are going to be very high all week so it gives us underdogs a chance to hang in there with the front runners.”

Being an underdog is one thing, but the lady jacks are coming off a very weak season, and aren’t going into the tournament with as much as confidence as well, these added up will make for a tough test on a tough course like Vaaler Creek.

“It’s going to be a tough week for the girls, we haven’t played a tough test of course like this all year, and this is the tournament that means the most so the pressure level will be higher,” Schroeder said. We just have to really grind hard all week, and the only way we will do that is with our short games. With how tough the greens will be, chipping and putting will be where most of the shots will be won and lost.”

The girls were set to tee off at 8 oclock Monday morning in hopes to get off to a good start. According to Coach Schroeder, that is about the opposite of what happened.

” The girls got off to a very rough start this morning,” Schroeder said. “The course wasn’t playing very tough so it was pretty disappointing to get off to that kind of start. This course is has a lot of trouble on it so when you’re hitting it as bad as we were, it is tough to get shots back,” Schroeder said.

The ladyjacks shot a last place score of 338 Monday morning, putting them 48 shots back of the first place team UTSA, who shot a very impressive two over par 290 first round.

“We all just seemed to start really bad, and we just couldn’t get it back, it actually seemed once we all knew we were all playing bad, it got even worse,” Jones said.

The good thing about these 54-hole golf tournaments is that it is not all won on the first day, it takes three rounds to win, so the lady jacks still have two days to come back.

“We dug ourselves a pretty big hole today, but we still have two rounds to try and get back in the tournament,” Maynard said. “But to do that we will have to change up a lot, every part of our games will have to get better, we will have to be smarter off the tee, and better around the greens,” Maynard said.

Not only was the girls games off, but according to sophomore Aliece Anderson, their confidence was not where it need to be either.

“I didn’t have my best today, I drove the ball poorly and on top of that got some bad breaks,” Anderson said. “But my biggest problem out there was my confidence, I didnt trust my game at all and I know it was the same for the other girls.”

The ladies will again tee of at 8 a.m. in the morning, and according to Coach Schroeder, they couldn’t ask for a better position to move up.

“Coming off a day like that, our scores will only get better, now it wont be easy, but since we are getting out earlier than the other teams, a low round in the morning could get us right back in the pack heading into the last day,” Schroeder said.

The lady jacks will again be teeing off first around 8 olock, whihc according to coach Schroder

 

 

smithma9@titan.sfasu.edu

 

 

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The First Tee

April 16, 2012   Steven McLeroy

A tropical storm blowing out of the South was not the problem this week for collegiate golfers in the state of Arkansas. It was a 40 mph wind that came through Tuesday morning.

The Lumberjack Men’s golf team traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas, this weekend to battle with some of the best collegiate teams in the nation. The tournament field consisted of 7 out of the 12 teams ranked in the top 50 in the nation.

Arizona, North Texas, New Mexico, Baylor, Texas A&M and a handful of other teams all made their way to Little Rock to try and win The First Tee Collegiate Invitational.

The tournament consisted of three days of golf, March 25-27, with each competitor playing 18 holes a day.

With round one kicking off on Sunday, March 25, the Lumberjacks started off of hole number 10 around 12:30 p.m. With the weather being absolutely perfect for scoring conditions, freshman Blake Pugh, Southlake,  and junior Jeff Hageman, Southlake, got off to a red hot start ;each being two under par in the early going of the tournament. As the round continued and the sun starting to drop, the Lumberjacks started fading towards the back of the pack.

At the end of the day the Lumberjacks fired a 297, 9 over par first round with senior Michael Smith, Cedar Park, leading the way with a one over par 73. Hageman was not far off of Smith’s pace with a 2 over 74. Freshman Blake Pugh and junior Mitchell McLeroy, Mansfield, both carded 75’s. After round one the Lumberjacks were 23 shots off the lead to The University of New Mexico after they fired a solid round of 274.

“We didn’t get any rounds under par today and that’s what really hurt us here in the first round. These teams know how to get it done when conditions are like this and my number one and two man didn’t perform how they wanted to today,” Head coach Trey Schroeder said.

“We have to go out there tomorrow and see if we can cut 23 shots in half,” Schroeder said.

Being 23 shots down, the Lumberjacks teed it up in round two with red numbers being only thing on their mind.

With weather conditions being absolutely perfect once again, junior Mitchell McLeroy got off to a red hot start birding two of his first six holes. Knowing that his team mates were struggling, McLeroy turned it up on the back nine carding two more birdies to get him to four under for the day with four holes to play until a double bogey stopped him dead in his tracks. McLeroy finished the round with three consecutive pars and posted SFA’s first under par score of the tournament.

Senior Michael Smith started the day off rough but fought back hard to knock three strokes off of his score on the back nine to shoot 75.

“I just didn’t get anything going in the beginning of the round and I knew the team needed me so I found something on the back nine and it seemed to work,” Michael Smith said.

The Lumberjacks ended up posting a 296, shaving one stroke off their day one performance. Once again it wasn’t enough to cut the lead down of the Lobos, who shot a  286 for the day.

With round two coming to an end, the players and coaches knew the worse was yet to come. With weather reports indicating that a cold front was coming through Little Rock Monday night. With Tuesday bringing 40 mph winds to the tournament.

The tournament was greeted with mother nature and her force on Tuesday morning. With the Lumberjacks being the test dummies, they were the first out onto the course with the hurricane winds.

With the Lumberjacks playing steady golf they quickly started climbing up the leader board. Each player of the team made the turn after nine holes at 3 over par or better with the rest of the field going way up in scores.

With head coach Trey Schroeder informing his players that they were moving up, the team started turning up the heat. Out smarting and out playing everyone else, the Lumberjacks started making birdies on the very difficult golf course.

Junior Jeff Hageman recorded five birdies on the back nine en route to a three under par 69, the lowest score of the day for the entire field.

“I really just stayed very calm out there all day and didn’t press and that‘s when putts started falling in. It was actually pretty easy,” junior, Jeff Hageman said after the round.

McLeroy and  Smith followed in Hageman’s footsteps recording birdies on the back nine before running into problems on the final three holes.  

Smith ended up with a 74 while McLeroy stumbled to a 77 in the final round. The Lumberjacks ended up firing a 302 being the third lowest team round of the day.

Hageman’s stellar play took him from a tie in 57th place to a tie for 12th in the tournament.

Smith and McLeroy finished in a tie for 31st place with 6 over totals for three days while freshman Blake Pugh ended up in 72nd place.

The Lumberjacks will travel to Victoria, Texas next week to play in the Jim West Collegiate hosted by Texas State. The Jim West collegiate tournament will be live on Golfstat for all fans and SFA alumni to watch.

With the spring semester coming to a close, the Lumberjacks are faced with two more tournaments until they have to battle in McKinney, TX, for the Southland Conference Championship.

“All of these tournaments this year is just a preparation to see where we are at and to see what we need to work on before the conference tournament,” Schroeder said.

The Southland Conference tournament will begin on April 23 and will consist of 18 holes a day over the span of three days. The winning team of the tournament will automatically advance to the regional tournament that will be played during May 16 through the 18th.  The Lumberjacks have not advanced to regionals since 1998 when head coach Trey Schroeder was on the winning team himself.

sm.mcleroy@gmail.com


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