May 19, 2004

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — After just over a month off, the 12th-ranked South Carolina men’s golf team continues postseason play this week when it travels to New Haven, Conn., for the NCAA East Regional at the 6,679-yard, par-70 Yale Golf Club on May 20-22.

The Gamecocks finished tied for seventh a year ago at the NCAA East Regional in Auburn, Ala., and enter this year’s event as the tournament’s fifth seed.

Including South Carolina (No. 12), the field for the NCAA East Regional will feature eight of the nation’s top-20 teams and four of the top 10, according to the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, including Florida (No. 1), Clemson (No. 2), Georgia (No. 3), Georgia Tech (No. 6), Augusta State (No. 14), Wake Forest (No. 16), and Duke (No. 18). Also part of the 27th teams competing (in seed order) will be Tennessee, North Carolina, LSU, Georgia State, Jacksonville State, NC State, UAB, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Georgia Southern, Penn State, Georgetown, Towson, Rhode Island, Maryland, Binghamton, Yale, Army, and Long Island.

The Gamecock lineup for the East Regional will have just one change from the last three outings for South Carolina, as a trio of All-SEC selections in Eirik Johansen, Martin Rominger and Alex Hamilton continue to lead the way. Joining them in the field this week will be junior Jake Thompson and sophomore Robert Svensson. Johansen, Rominger and Hamilton all saw action in the NCAAs a year ago, while Thompson and Svensson will be making their first NCAA appearances.

This year’s appearance in the NCAA East Regional marks the 13th regional bid for the Gamecocks, and the 16th NCAA appearance overall in school history. South Carolina has advanced to the NCAA Championship in nine of those years, including three of the past five seasons. The Gamecocks have twice had an individual regional champion, as Kyle Thompson won both the 1999 NCAA East Regional and the 2001 NCAA West Regional, becoming the first player in NCAA history to win two different regionals in their career. Thompson tied the school record with his final-round 63 at the 1999 East Regional at the Rhode Island Country Club in Providence, R.I.

South Carolina will be grouped with fourth-seeded Georgia Tech and sixth-seeded Augusta State for both the first and second rounds of the tournament. The Gamecocks will tee off beginning at 11:33 a.m. on May 20 for the first round, and at 7:30 a.m. on May 21 for the second round.