Reporting was contributed by Zach Hailey.
The women’s golf team participated in the Great American Conference Championship this past weekend in Hot Springs, Ark. Junior Brittany Marquez shot 11-over 227, which broke the school’s previous 54-hole record of 11-over 228 set by Emily Plyler last season.
“I am pretty excited about breaking another school record,” Marquez said. “Last year I broke the 18-hole and 36-hole records, and it is awesome that now I hold the 54-hole record as well.”
Individually Marquez tied for second in the championship’s standings. The Lady Bisons finished eighth overall out of nine teams.
Marquez said the team played hard this spring. Personally, she said she has not played her best.
“I felt like I played my heart out this tournament and the results showed that I did,” Marquez said.
For the men’s golf team, senior Lucas Collins received All-Tournament honors. He finished with a 3-under 69, tying the best round of golf in his career. Collins placed sixth overall.
In the first round of the tournament on Sunday, Harding shot a 300. Due to a rain on Monday, the team played 36 holes on Tuesday. Harding shot a 306 in the second round. The team fired 290 in the third round, which was the top single-round score for the Bisons in a conference tournament in the past nine years. Harding finished at 896 leaving them in sixth place overall.
According to sophomore Alex Williamson, the overall season went well, but there is always room for improvement in the coming years.
“It was a pretty good season from start to finish but not quite as good as we would have liked,” Williamson said. “(We had) a lot of good first rounds, but bad second rounds kept us from really finishing good in a lot of tournaments. We won twice which was one short of our goal, but from start to finish, we had a good year overall.”
Head coach Dustin Howell said Collins and Williamson rose to the occasion this season.
“Those guys have stepped up when it counts, and I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Howell said. “I put a lot of pressure on them at the end of the year, as they knew it would be their job to fire a low number and lead the team. Skill and experience was huge at Red Apple and our conference tournament.”
Howell said the past season was filled with excitement as the team had two victories, the most in a season for the Bisons since 2010. He also said his favorite memory was the team playoff victory over Southeastern Oklahoma University.
“The guys wanted to defend our home tournament, and they gutted it out to the very end,” Howell said.
