No. 2 Bulldogs revisits site of past glory
PERKINSTON — No. 2 Mississippi Gulf Coast is headed back to the site of its greatest accomplishment this week. The Bulldogs will be playing at GlenLakes Golf Club in Foley, Ala., where the school won its first NJCAA championship.
They are playing in the GlenLakes Invitational, a 54-hole event that begins with two rounds on Monday.
"We have great memories over there," Gulf Coast coach Brad Thornton said. "These kids on the trip don't have any clue, but all of us coaches who are going back over there, it's going to be very important to us to go back to where we won a national championship in 2018. It's a special memory for us."
Thornton was an assistant on that title team, and former head coach Tommy Snell will be on hand as an assistant.
Gulf Coast has won seven times already this year, but this will be a tougher test. The 15-team field is filled with NJCAA Division I teams, plus another team in the Bushnell Golfweek NJCAA Division II Coaches Poll. Abraham Baldwin is 10th in that ranking and makes the trip down from Georgia to play.
Central Alabama, Jefferson State and Wallace State are all receiving votes in the Division I version. Cleveland State is ranked 18th by GolfStat in D-II, where Gulf Coast is third.
St. Thomas University from Miami, ranked 24th in the NAIA Golfstat rankings, is also participating.
"This will be one of the better fields we play against all year until we hopefully get into the national championship in May," Thornton said. "We're looking forward to testing ourselves and seeing where we're at this time of year."
The Bulldogs are bringing six players to the event, with Chase Kaiser (So., Natchez/Cathedral), Will Burnham (Fr., Jackson/Jackson Prep), Jackson Wise (Fr., Pontotoc/North Pontotoc) and Alessio Graziani (So., Johannesburg, South Africa/Beaulieu College) in the team as usual.
Kyle Davidson (Fr., Kyalami, South Africa/St. Peter's College) is going to play at No. 5 after finishing third at East Central's Warrior Invitational as an individual. Andrew Zielinski (Fr., Ocean Springs/Ocean Springs) will play as an individual at GlenLakes.
For more information on MGCCC's 11 intercollegiate athletic teams, follow @MGCCCBulldogs on Twitter and MGCCCBulldogs on Facebook, and go to mgcccbulldogs.com.
