Despite success
no post-season for UMPI golfers this year
By Jon Gulliver
Staff Reporter
PRESQUE ISLE — It has been a successful season for the UMPI golf team, but due to the transition from NAIA to dual membership in the NCAA Division III and the USCAA there will be no post-season play this year.
Second-year Coach Dan Hotham said play has been excellent this year, which came as a slight surprise to him with only one returning player from last year’s squad, which won the NAIA Sunrise Conference title. (The conference disbanded upon completion of the 2010-11 season.)
Contributed photo
STRONG START — The 2011 UMPI golf team is off to a great start this season, with four first-place finishes so far. Members of the team are, from left, Reynold Brown, Alex Harris, Anthony Batchelder, Michael Balmer, head coach Dan Hotham, Kenneth D. Conley Jr., Eric Brown and Allen Connor.
In the first seven events of this season UMPI had four first-place finishes.
“Next year we will be part of a conference and have a conference championship to play in and be able to send some players to the USCAA National Championship,” Hotham said.
With only freshmen and sophomores on the 8-player roster, post-season play should be on the radar for next season.
The one-two punch at the top of the roster is freshman Reynold Brown of Essex, Conn. and sophomore Mike Balmer of New Smyrna Beach, Fla. Brown has been the medalist at four meets this year, and was the USCAA Golfer of the Week in early September. Balmer, who was the Sunrise Conference Rookie and Player of the Year last year, was the medalist at the EMCC Invitational and has consistently been in the upper 70s all season.
Another reason coach Hotham is confident this team will be playing in the post-season next year is attitude.
“Last year some of the upperclassmen on the team did not get upset at a poor performance or practice diligently to improve,” he said. “These guys do get upset when they do not perform and work very hard at improving their game.”
The Owls were scheduled to wrap up their 2011 campaign yesterday at a meet hosted by the University of Maine Machias at the Castine Country Club.
