Following a highly successful fall season which ended with four straight tournament wins, UTM was voted second in the 2019-20 Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) golf predicted order of finish.
The Skyhawks earned a pair of first-place votes from the league’s head coaches, tallying 88 overall points in the preseason standings. That trails only Jacksonville State, who received eight first-place votes and 97 points.
Morehead State (one first-place vote, 84 points), Belmont (75), Austin Peay (60), Eastern Kentucky (54), Tennessee Tech (47), Murray State (41), SIUE (29), Tennessee State (18) and Eastern Illinois (12) rounded out the poll.
UTM tied for the best scoring average (283.7) in the OVC during the fall campaign, taking part in six tournaments. The Skyhawks began the season with back-to-back runner-up finishes before reeling off four straight victories for the first time in school history. UTM topped the field at the SIUE Derek Dolenc Invitational (Sept. 23-24), the Skyhawk Fall Classic (Sept. 30-Oct. 1), the F&M Bank APSU Intercollegiate (Oct. 14-15) and the TVA Community Credit Union Invitational (Oct. 21-22).
In the process, UTM displayed a balanced lineup that features five of the league’s top 20 scorers in stroke average. That list includes Jack Story (70.1, second), Ross Redmont (71.4, fifth), Nick Wolf (71.6, 10th), Tate Chumley (72.4, 17th) and Mason Chandler (72.4, 20th).
Story nabbed OVC Golfer of the Week honors three times during the fall, carding a pair of victories and five top-eight finishes. The senior southpaw from Dickson also became the first player in school history to earn OVC Golfer of the Month accolades in September.
Wolf followed that with the OVC’s Golfer of the Month award for October, closing out the fall with four straight top-eight finishes. Redmont (two top-five finishes), Chumley (trio of top-15 finishes) and Chandler (pair of top-10 finishes) also each played a pivotal role in the Skyhawks’ success this fall.
Freshmen Jacob Uehlein (73.8 scoring average), Bryson Morrell (75.9) and Luke Smith (76.7) also showed immense signs of potential for head coach Jerry Carpenter, who is in his 18th and final season at the helm of the UTM program.
The Skyhawks start their spring schedule later this month when they travel to Goodyear, Arizona. for the Loyola Intercollegiate on Feb. 22-24.
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