VIDEO: Suzanne Strudwick Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – After a regular season that saw the Carson-Newman women's golf team record four top-five finishes including a tournament win, the Eagles now head to the South Atlantic Conference Championship for the three-day event that begins Sunday at the Members Club at Woodcreek in Elgin, S.C.
The Eagles come to the championship hoping to capture a conference title, a feat the team has not accomplished since 2015 when C-N garnered its third in program history.
"We started the season off with a bang in the fall and really challenged ourselves in the schedule -- played a really tough schedule, played with some top-five teams in the country in three tournaments and finished third and second with those," head coach Suzanne Strudwick said. "I was really hopeful for the spring schedule. I think that Christmas break and the weather being so bad, the girls weren't able to get as much practice in and it showed. We were very rusty coming into the spring and never really recovered."
Strudwick's team started the season with a second consecutive win at the King Invitational where senior Elizabeth England (Oakland, Tenn.) defended her title with a +4 score of 146, her lowest 36-hole total of the season.
England, the now four-time All-SAC First Team member, returns to the Championship a year removed from setting a SAC Championship record with a two-under score of 214, earning her the SAC Tournament champion title.
Currently sitting at 56th in Golfstat's national Division II women's rankings, she holds an adjusted scoring average of 76.27 through 17 rounds of play. She carded the team's lowest round score of 72 three different times this season, a score that only one other Eagle was able to match in this campaign.
England is one of three Eagles returning to the Championship field for C-N this season along with Reagan Kinnie (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) and Allie Fletcher (Cumming, Ga.).
Kinnie traveled to every event for the Eagles this season, recording a 78.8 scoring average in 19 rounds of golf. She comes into the event with three top-20 finishes in the regular season, one of those coming in the top-10. She concluded last year's championship in a tie for 46th at 32-over par.
Fletcher, on the other hand, played in 13 rounds for a 79 scoring average. Her best outing was an 11th-place finish at the CBU Super Regional Preview at the end of October. Playing as an individual, the sophomore was 20-over par with a 236 total.
Anna Davenport (Roswell, Ga.) makes her fourth appearance of the season at the championship. The junior played in the King Invitational as an individual to open the season but did not see playing time again until the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate, also as an individual. Her standout performance came at the Sunoco Campbell Oil Classic where she participated as a team member. She finished fifth in the event, the highest of any of her teammates on the leaderboard, with a +12 score of 228.
Freshman Jayla Sims will also make the trip to the championship with the Eagles. Through 14 rounds of play in the regular season, she compiled a 79.6 average with a trio of top-20 finishes.
Two top-25 teams are included in the field with No. 15 Wingate and reigning SAC Champion No. 25 Lenoir-Rhyne.
"Our biggest thing is poise, that's going to be one of my keywords that we're going to sort of focus on," Strudwick mentioned. "It's just being poised all the way through. It's 54 holes, three days, you know, we can do it. It's the last round and the last nine holes are where it's going to come down to."
The tournament will last from Sunday through Tuesday at the Members Club at Woodcreek in Elgin, S.C. which holds a course that spans 5,830 yards with a par of 72. Live scoring will be provided by the folks at Newberry.
