INDIANAPOLIS — The No. 7 University of La Verne golf team has earned an at-large bid to the 2014 NCAA Division III National Championships, the NCAA Division III Men's Golf Committee announced on Monday. The championships will be hosted by Guilford and the Greensboro Sports Commission on May 13-16 at Grandover Resort in Greensboro, N.C.
It will be La Verne's 14th appearance at the national championships and the Leopards are looking to bring home the program's first national championship. The Leopards finished runner-up on two different occasions, in 2007 and 2009.
La Verne did not finish the conference season the way it wanted to but it is still considered one of the best teams in the nation, ranking seventh in the latest Golf Coaches Association of America poll. La Verne had gone into the final round of the 2014 SCIAC Championships just one shot behind the leader and eventual champion Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, but high winds wreaked havoc on the course on the final day and the Leopards had to settle for a third place finish.
La Verne won a total of three tournaments this season. The Leopards won the one-round SCIAC Preview with a score of 293, claimed the SCIAC No. 2 behind a medalist effort from Kelby Scharmann and took the Baldy View Shootout with a single-round score of 279. The Leopards also notched a fifth place finish at the prestigious Jekyll Island (Ga.) Collegiate Invitational in March.
A total of 210 participants will compete at the 2014 championships. Thirty-one conferences were awarded an automatic qualification for the championships. Three teams were selected from Pool B, which consists of independent institutions, and institutions that are members of conferences that do not meet the requirements for automatic qualification. The final seven berths were reserved for Pool C, which are institutions from automatic-qualifying conferences that are not the conference champion and any remaining Pool B teams. The top five individuals are selected from the remaining players who have not qualified with a team.
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