Three Lee golfer fired under-par rounds and helped give the men's golf team a one-stroke lead after the opening round of play in the Southern States Athletic Tournament being staged at Legoon
Park.
Matt Emery carded a 3-under 69 to lead the way. Florian
Loutre
and JB
Ekteen
posted 2-under 70s
and Peyton Sliger
added a 73 in giving the Flames (282) a one-shot margin over College of Coastal Georgia (283) and a two-shot advantage over Faulkner University (284).
Hunter Vest (75) rounded out the Lee scoring in Monday's opening session of 54-hole tourney.
Eleven teams are taking part in SSAC
competition, but it appears to be a three-team race. Southern Wesleyan and Truett
-McConnell (294) are 12 shots off the pace.
In the medalist play, Chase Miller (66) of Coastal Georgia, has a three-shot lead over Lee's Emery and two other golfers. Loutre
and Eksteen
are tied for fifth and Sliger
is deadlocked for the 11th spot.
“We played a solid-team round today," said coach John Maupin. "It’s always good when you can throw out a 75. Also to count three scores or better at 70 was encouraging. I thought we did a good job of staying focused and trying to get the most out of our rounds.
"As you can see from the team scores there is some great competition going on," he added. "We know it’s going to take three good days of golf to pull this out. I think we have a great chance to play well tomorrow too. It’s a new day though, and we need to realize that. Our goal is to give every shot 100 percent focus and effort, and let the results take care of themselves.”
At the SSAC
banquet on Sunday evening, Vest, Emery and Taylor Davis were named to the 10-men All-SSAC
team. Eksteen
, Tyler Smith, Zack Lawson and Scott Murray joined Vest on the All-Scholar Athlete team. Eksteen
was Lee's Champion of Character honoree.
"I am proud of the guys who were honored at the banquet," said Maupin. "They were all very deserving and have had solid seasons."