VIDEO: Suzanne Strudwick Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Nearly two weeks after concluding the regular season with yet another top-three showing, No. 24/25 Carson-Newman heads back to the Tar Heel State for the South Atlantic Conference Championship at the Lake Hickory Country Club – Catawba Springs Golf Course in Hickory, N.C. beginning on Sunday.
This season has been a special one for the team as it heads into the tournament with seven top-three finishes and is nationally ranked in both the Golfstat and Women's Golf Coaches Association polls. C-N also debuted at No. 13 in the first batch of NCAA South Region rankings.
"We've just had a single purpose in mind and when your team comes together, sees the vision, you know, and has a single goal and that's to get to regions as a team, good things happen," Carson-Newman coach Suzanne Strudwick said. "For me, personally, it's a lot of satisfaction, putting in the hard work, seeing the fruition of that."
Since their first trip to the championship in 2009, the Eagles have seen six top-three finishes including three wins in 2015, 2011 and 2009. They tied for fifth in the field last year.
On the individual side, C-N has not seen one of its own win the tournament MVP title since Elizabeth England did so in 2017. The only other Eagle to win the tournament was Sarah Jane Sinard in 2009.
Maeve Cummins (Waringstown, Northern Ireland), the SAC's newly minted Freshman of the Year and second team All-SAC selection, leads the Orange and Blue charge into Hickory. This serves as her third start in five events. She leads the team with a 76.1 stroke average through 21 rounds.
While Cummins is making her SAC Championship debut, the rest of her teammates will be making returns to the tournament.
Reagan Kinnie (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) heads back to the event, this time as the No. 2, a position she has held just one other time this season. She holds the second-best scoring average on the team this year at 76.8 in 20 rounds. The junior heads into the tournament after closing the regular season with a tie for 11th at the Sunoco Campbell Oil Classic nearly two weeks ago.
This will be Kinnie's third appearance in the conference championship, still searching for a top-20 finish.
Holding down the middle spot of the lineup for the Eagles is Rachel Watts (Newport, Tenn.) at the three-seed. The junior has started in every event for the travel team this year, averaging a 77.7 clip in that time. She still holds the team's lowest single round score of the season with a 70 in the first round of the Spring Kickoff Intercollegiate.
Watts has not participated in the tournament since her freshman year when she tied for 42nd with a 29-over total of 245.
Jayla Sims (Soddy Daisy, Tenn.) will serve as the fourth-seed for C-N this week. She closed out the regular season with one of her two top-10 finishes on the year, tying for seventh at the Sunoco Campbell Oil Classic at eight-over. The sophomore's scoring average currently sits at 77.8 through 17 rounds spanning seven events.
This is the second-consecutive year Sims will compete in the tournament. She was 26th last season with a 32-over outing.
Rounding out the starting lineup for the Orange and Blue is Taylor Hayes (Lake Ozark, Mo.) at the No. 5 spot. The senior has not seen top-10 showings since the fall portion of the season, finishing in fifth at the King Invitational before tying for third at the Jekyll-O-Lantern Intercollegiate. Like Sims, she is also averaging a 77.8 clip through 17 rounds.
Hayes competed at the conference event in her freshman and sophomore campaigns. Her best finish came in her first appearance in 2016, tying for fourth at 14-over.
Anna Davenport (Roswell, Ga.) heads to the tournament as the only individual in the entire field. Her 78.3 scoring average through eight rounds this season was enough to give her a special entry into the tournament.
The senior had one of the better showing of the C-N group from last season at the championship, tying for 12th at 25-over.
"The depth that we have is incredible," Strudwick said. "Anna Davenport was picked as the only individual this week because of her 78 stroke average. Nobody else put anybody in, so that tells me that her stroke average just blew everybody else away that had that sixth player."
Wingate defends its title this season with SAC Player of the Year Mind Puangcharoen, ranked 17th in the nation among Division II players in the Golfstat player rankings.
The conference tournament takes the team to Catawba Springs Course that holds a 72 par while spanning 6,065 yards.
The three-day tournament begins on Sunday with C-N hitting the links starting at 9:15 a.m. Live scoring will be provided thanks to the folks at Lenoir-Rhyne via BirdieFire.
