Indians open the 2012 golf season with seventh place finish

Indians open the 2012 golf season with seventh place finish
Adam Gore/ICC Sports Information Department

PASS CHRISTIAN, MS – The Itawamba Community College golf team opened the 2012 season with a seventh place finish in the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Invitational by turning in a 685 team-total.

"As inexperienced as we are I'll take a seventh place finish," said ICC head coach David Rather. "We are going to have a period of adjustment for these guys and once we get that behind us I look for us to finish the year strong."

Warren Smith bounced back from an opening-round 92 to card a final-round 73 to finished tied with teammate John Michael Parker at 165. Parker opened the two-day event with a 78 and closed the tournament by carding an 87.

"Warren did a great job to put the first round behind him and finishing strong today," said Rather. "John Michael put himself in really good position after the first round, but caught one of those days where the breaks were beating the boys today."

Evan Ellis finished alone at 40th with a two-day score of 177 (83-94) while Eric Symes finished T43 at 181 (84-97) and Justin Ward carded a 191 (97-94) to finish T48.

"I think the conditioning and mental part of playing back-to-back rounds caught some of these young guys by surprise," said Rather. "We'll take what the guys learned from this tournament and work on putting it towards the next one."

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College won the event with a 610 total while Co-Lin's Keaton Stamps took home medalist honors (71-76-147).