Nov. 14, 2004
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech, the No. 2-ranked team in collegiate golf, has the top seed and will face Penn State in the first round of the Hooters Collegiate Match Play Championship, which begins Monday at Mission Inn Resort at Howey-in-the Hills, Fla.
The 16-team field includes top-ranked Georgia, No. 3 Oklahoma State, No. 8 UCLA, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 10 Texas, No. 17 Clemson, No. 18 Georgia State and No. 24 Purdue. The winner of Tech’s match will face the winner of No. 38 Arizona and Purdue in the quarterfinals.
Kentucky grabbed the fourth seed where it will face No. 13 seeded Clemson. A match-up between fifth-seeded Texas and No. 12 Pepperdine completes the top half of the bracket. Oklahoma State earned the tournament’s second seed and will face defending national champion California. Florida – the event’s defending champion and seventh seed – will face UCLA in the opening round. Third-seeded Georgia will face No. 14 Texas A&M while sixth-seeded Georgia State tees off against No. 11 Washington in other first-round action.
Each team is guaranteed two matches under the modified double-elimination format, which includes a consolation bracket and champion. Each team fields five players for a match ranked No. 1 through 5, with No. 1 players facing off against each, other, No. 2 vs. No. 2, and so on. Each individual match counts a point for his team, and the team winning the most points advances to the next round.
Substituting is allowed between matches, and Tech will take six players to this event, including sophomore Roberto Castro, the No. 5-ranked player in the nation, senior Nicholas Thompson, the No. 13-ranked player in the nation, senior Chan Song, the No. 25-ranked player in the nation, juniors Mike Barbosa (No. 45) and Thomas Jordan, and sophomore Kevin Larsen.
Castro leads Tech with a 71.00 stroke average and has three top-10 finishes in four events this fall. He missed a fourth top-10 by one shot last week at the Carpet Capital Collegiate. Thompson has averaged 71.67, and Song has averaged 72.42, and each has three top-20 finishes. Barbosa has a stroke average of 72.83 with two top-20 finishes in four events, and Jordan has a 74.44 average in three tournaments. Larsen, in his first start of the fall at last week’s Carpet Capital Collegiate, tied for sixth place.
Tech won the consolation bracket of last year’s Hooter Match Play event, defeating Southern California and Georgia before dropping a 3-1-1 match to Florida, who went on to win the title. The Yellow Jackets defeated Oklahoma State in a playoff after the match was tied, 2-2-1, in regulation.
The Hooters Collegiate Match Play Championship is conducted by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) and the National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA), in association with Hooters of America, Inc., and is co-hosted by the Central Florida Sports Commission.
