May 14, 2010
RUSTON - The Louisiana Tech Bulldog golf team celebrated the program's best season in more than 20 years as head coach Jeff Parks and Co. held an end of the year banquet this week in Ruston.
The Bulldogs playing with only one senior on the roster started the year ranked 158th in the country but moved up 60 spots to finish 98th, the highest ranking in 20 years by a LA Tech team.
During the season, Tech competed in 11 events and finished in the top half of the field in seven of the tournaments, including a season-best third place finish at the 15-team Bulldog Classic hosted at Squire Creek in mid-March.
As a team, Tech recorded a scoring average of 296.73 which is the second lowest in the last two decades while the Bulldogs defeated 23 Top 100 ranked teams during the year. The Bulldogs also finished in fifth place at the WAC Championships, the highest since LA Tech joined the league in 2001.
Tech's roster this year consisted of senior Matthew Harvey, juniors Clinton Shepard, Cody Blankenship, and Timothy Byrd, sophomores Jonathan Bale, Patrick Blunt, Cody Santone and Joel Thelen and freshmen Sam Forgan and Hayden Stephens.
Freshman Hayden Stephens was named the Newcomer of the Year as the Austin, Texas native played in seven of the 11 events and finished tied for 16th at the WAC Championships played in Nevada in early May.
Sophomore Jonathan Bale earned the Academic Award. Bales competed in 10 events during the year and posted four Top 10 finishes along the way, including tying for ninth at the WAC Championships. Bale has a 3.31 grade point average in business management.
The Bulldog Award was presented to sophomore Cody Santone from Haughton. Santone led the Bulldogs during the year with a 74.42 scoring average while playing in all 11 events. He recorded four Top 20 finishes during the season.
Senior Matthew Harvey earned the Captains Award. The senior from Georgetown, Texas ends his career with a 74.11 scoring average - the lowest by a Bulldog golfer in the last 20 years. Harvey played in 45 of 46 career tournaments and had 94 percent of his rounds counted towards the Bulldogs team score. He also recorded 35 rounds at par or better in his career.
