The Illinois State mens golf team will travel to Silvis, Ill., for the Missouri Valley Mens Golf Championship April 28-29. The TPC at Deere Run, home to the PGA-sponsored John Deere Classic, will set the stage, as the reigning champion Redbirds attempt to defend their Valley title.
The Birds are coming off of an up-and-down spring season, in which they placed at the top and bottom of the tournaments they competed in. In spite of inconsistency, however, head coach Harland Kilborn is optimistic in his teams ability to retain the conference title.
Since we havent done so well our last couple of tournaments, our work ethic leading up to the Valley tournament has been much stronger, said Kilborn. As far as the course is concerned this is a very good course for our team. There are wide fairways and lots of length, which lends itself well to our teams style of play.
Traveling in the five-man line-up for the Birds will be juniors Brian Anderson and Walter Brown, sophomore Kyle Vasel and freshmen Chris Eddy and Kristopher Wildenradt, which, according to Kilborn, is the best line-up our team has. Each golfer has turned in solid rounds and notable tournament performances throughout the season. Vasel and Anderson both ended the regular season boasting stroke averages of 74.33 and 74.78, respectively, to finish in the top-20 Valley leaderboard.
In the pre-tournament poll of Valley coaches, Wichita State is picked to finish first at the nine-team event with seven first-place votes, and 69 points. Illinois State is picked for second with 60 points, followed by Drake in third with 58, and SMS in fourth with 45. Southern Illinois received one first-place vote and 37 points to tie with Northern Iowa for the fifth-place pick. Evansville received 24 points to draw the seventh-place pick, while Bradley received 20 and eighth. Rounding out the field of competitors is Creighton, receiving 10 points to get the ninth-place pick.
In spite of Illinois States second-place draw in the pre-tourney poll, Kilborn is looking for his Redbirds to come home with more when the competition concludes.
Wichita State is the favorite going in, theyve played solid rounds all season long, said Kilborn. Weve competed with them, but usually only for the first two of the three rounds in a tournament. Well just need to have more consistency in this tournament than we have in previous tournaments. This team hasnt peaked yet, so hopefully that will happen at the Valley tournament.
In the 2002 tournament the Redbirds walked away as Conference champions, as well as boasting the tournament medalist in Adam Goldie (graduated). The Redbirds swept all tournament honors last year as Kilborn was also unanimously voted Valley Coach of the Year.
Golf action gets underway for the 2003 competition Monday with the first two rounds of the tournament. The final round and awards presentation will take place on Tuesday, when the conference team and individual champions will be crowned, as well as the coach of the year. All-conference honors will go to the top six individual finishers.
