LC's Bettis finishes T3; Advances to NJCAA men's golf championship
 

[May 11, 2016]  NORMAL - The NJCAA Region XXIV men's golf tournament wrapped up its 2-day, 54-hole tournament on Monday with Illinois Central College taking the team title shooting a 3-round total 913 just ahead of Lewis & Clark and Rend Lake, who tied second place 17 shots back (930).

ICC shot a first round 301 to take a 2-shot lead and never looked back. In the second round, also played on Sunday in the Day One 36-hole format, ICC again fired a team score of 301 to extend their lead to 15 strokes over Lewis & Clark and 16 shots ahead of Rend Lake heading into the final round on Monday. With cool and wet conditions on Monday, ICC was able to wrap up the team title holding off both Lewis & Clark and Rend Lake with a score of 311. Rend Lake posted a 312 and Lewis & Clark shot a 313 on the final day. Lincoln College shot a 3-round total of 993, good for 5th place overall.

The competition allows each team to play five players each round with only the top four scores from each team counting towards the team score. ICC's Ethan Brue took medalist honors and was crowned the Region XXIV champion with a 3-round score of 224. Brue shot 1-under par 70 on his opening round holding a two-shot lead over Lewis & Clark's Joaquin Perez.

Brue's teammate Jordan Perry shot his way up the leaderboard during the second round on Sunday firing an even-par 71, the best score of the second round of any player in the field. The 71 by Perry was good enough to tie his teammate Brue for the overnight lead heading into Monday.

Brue was able to hold it together long enough on Monday posting a 5-over 76 to take the title. Perry shot 78 in round two to take 2nd place with a 3-round total of 226.

Hunter Bettis

Lincoln College's Hunter Bettis shot the best round of the field on Monday with a 2-over 73 to tie Perez for overall 3rd place. Bettis finished the 54 holes with 11 total birdies in the three rounds. Jordan Nelson finished in a tie for 19th with a 244 (82/82/80). Hunter Leach (87/84/87) finished in 28th while Peter Greening and Brandon Savage finished 34th and 35th.

In order to advance to the National Tournament, the top team will advance all five of their players while the next five individuals not on the winning team move on as well. Here are the list of players from ICC's winning team along with the other five golfers advancing to the National Tournament:

ICC

Ethan Brue - 70/78/76-224
Jordan Perry - 77/71/78-226
Seth Rebbe - 76/76/78-230
Jake Plummer - 78/76/79-233
Nate Hopper - 80/78/79-237

Individual Qualifiers:

Hunter Bettis (Lincoln College) - 79/75/73-227
Joaquin Perez (Lewis & Clark) - 72/78/77-227
Andrew Simpson (Lewis & Clark) - 77/76/77-230
Christian Khachaturian (Parkland College) - 77/77/77-231
Jordan Harre (Rend Lake) - 75/77/79-231

The top 10 scores from the tournament earn 2016 Region XXIV All-Region status.

Those players include:

Ethan Brue (ICC)
Jordan Perry (ICC)
Hunter Bettis (Lincoln)
Joaquin Perez (Lewis & Clark)
Seth Rebbe (ICC)
Andrew Simpson (Lewis & Clark)
Christian Khachaturian (Parkland)
Jordan Harre (Rend Lake)
Dom Knight (Parkland)
Jake Plummer (ICC)

After the conclusion of the tournament, ICC's Bo Ryan was named the Region XXIV 2016 Men's Golf Coach of the Year.

The NJCAA Division II Men's Golf National Championship will be played on May 24-27 at Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth, Indiana.

[Jeff Nelson]