Head Coach Larry Mays Southern Conference Tournament Quotes

On the expectations of the team heading into the tournament
“Well they're high. Obviously we're going over there wanting to compete for a championship. It's been one of our goals all year. We peaked at the right time and played well at the end of the season. I think we've been building towards that all year. We stubbed our toes a little bit in the last round at Augusta, but other than that we've been building towards this. I think we can use that round in Augusta as a little bit of a wakeup call.”

On recapping the season thus far
“We had a few wins. We played well most of the year. I've had a good mix of players. I think that if we can get all guys playing well at the same time, we're going to be a dangerous team going both in Conference and in Regionals.

Even in our wins we haven't had all guys clicking. If we can get them all clicking, I think we've got the talent to be a team to be reckoned with. We have to put a good finish at Conference and Regionals and hopefully head on to Nationals. There isn't any reason that if we're all playing well we can't compete to the last days of college golf.”

On having won the Raines Development Group Intercollegiate in the fall on the same course
“I think that's going to give us some good feelings as we step back on there. Obviously we didn't play well last year at conference and that left a bad taste in our mouth, but I think we got rid of that real quick in the fall. So I think that was a good move by going up there and playing. It gave some of our players another look at it.

Obviously we're not taking the same five guys this week that we took to that tournament in the fall, but basically at the end of the year we were down to six players all playing pretty good. We've got five guys going and most of them have played up there at one time or another. So, we're looking forward to going over there. We've got some good feelings going in. The other teams know that we played good at that tournament in the fall, so hopefully we can just go over there and have a repeat performance.”

On the Southern Conference competition
“Obviously if you look at the rankings you see that two schools have separated themselves from the rest of the SoCon schools right now. I'd say us and Chattanooga have had pretty good seasons. I'd say a lot of the other schools have been a little off this year. But, it seems like every year at the Southern Conference some team, that has what you wouldn't necessarily call a great season, steps up and plays well. So, we can't go over there thinking we can beat everybody just because we've beaten them at both the Raines Tournament and the Mizuno Tournament.

We've adopted this semester clocking in and going to work each round and that's something that is my job to make sure that we do. I have to make sure that we get focused and get over there and compete. I think everything's headed in the right direction. Like I said before, I think that last round in Augusta was a good little wake up call for us that everything can be going smooth, but if you lose your focus just for a minute it can slide pretty hard. So that woke us back up.

We had a good bit of practice going into this tournament and hopefully we can go over there and show our true colors.”

Print Friendly Version