PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley men's golf team will play its latest fall opener since 2012 in familiar territory as the Braves head to Normal, Ill., for the D.A. Weibring Intercollegiate Sunday and Monday.
Bradley will play in the Weibring Intercollegiate for the ninth consecutive year and 12th time in 15 seasons. The Weibring Intercollegiate is one of four tournaments on the fall schedule for the Braves, who return five letterwinners from last year's team which tied for fourth at the Missouri Valley Conference Championship.
The 15-team field at the Weibring Intercollegiate will serve as an early indicator of how Bradley stacks up in the MVC, with six of the other eight Valley teams slated to compete. In addition to tournament-host Illinois State, the Braves will be joined by Valley rivals Drake, Evansville, Missouri State, Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois. In-state foes SIU Edwardsville and Western Illinois are also in a field, which features Austin Peay, Butler, Central Arkansas, Detroit, Nebraska and Texas-Pan American.
Sunday's opening round of play will feature two rounds with an 8:30 a.m. shotgun start, while Monday's final round will have an 8:45 a.m. shotgun start. BradleyBraves.com will provide links to live scoring throughout the event at the par-71 Weibring Golf Course.
Headlining the returning cast of individuals is senior Lyle Burns (Mahomet, Ill./Seymour/Parkland), who led the team with a 74.52 stroke average last year. Burns owned the fourth lowest season stroke average in program history and the lowest by a Brave since 2002-03. He tied for 25th at last year's rain-shortened event with a two-round total of 148 (72-76) to miss a top 20 finish by one shot.
A pair of newcomers are expected to make their Bradley debuts, with freshman Drake Bushong (Pekin, Ill./Pekin) and junior Zach Jewell (Mapleton, Ill./Limestone/Illinois Central) both cracking the lineup for the Braves. Bushong was an all-state performer as a senior at Pekin High School after he finished sixth at the 2014 IHSA Class 3A State Championship.
Jewell was a Second-Team All-American as a sophomore at Illinois Central College and finished the 2014-15 year with a 75.1 stroke average. He tied for 13th at the NJCAA National Championship last year with the Cougars.
Sophomore Matthew Specht (Munster, Ind./Munster) and senior Garrett Cox (Mahomet, Ill./Seymour) will round out the Bradley lineup in the season opener. Cox capped the 2014-15 on a high note, tying for 13th at the MVC Championship and enters the year with six consecutive rounds in the 70's. He posted a 75.83 average over the final two tournaments of his junior year.
Specht played in 16 of 32 rounds last year, with 13 of his rounds coming in the spring. In his only appearance last fall, Specht shot a 224 (73-74-77) at the Butler Fall Invitational.
The Bradley men's golf team will stay in state after the D.A. Weibring Intercollegiate, taking part in the Derek Dolenc Invitational in Edwardsville, Ill., Sept. 28 & 29.
