Sports

Darton moves to second

• Each day, the three-time defending NJCAA National Champion Cavs gain ground on first-place Tyler, Texas, doing so again Thursday to shrink the deficit to six strokes heading in to today’s final round.

Greg Demmitt
Special to The Herald

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Darton College will keep an eye to the sky today as it seeks to capture its fourth consecutive NJCAA Division II Men’s Golf Championship at Palm Valley Golf Course in Goodyear, Ariz.

Not that it needs divine intervention to catch Tyler (Texas) Junior College, which led by 19 strokes after Tuesday’s first day. Since then, the Cavaliers haven’t played their best golf but still managed to cut another three strokes off the lead during Thursday’s third round after picking up 10 in the second round.

But the Cavaliers have to hope that the predicted thunderstorms don’t wipe out the final day of the tournament and eliminate any chance they have of catching Tyler. (There’s a 50 percent chance of rain today.) Darton’s Coleman Calhoun had started birdie-eagle-birdie and was 4-under after his tee shot on the fifth before lightning forced a one-hour delay.

Calhoun ended up 1-over after a double-bogey on 18 but didn’t blame the delay.

“I just had bad breaks coming in,” he said. “I played great. I hit a great tee shot on 18 and it just bounced straight left and under a bush. On 15 and 17 I lipped out for birdie. I hit the ball as good as I could and putted as good as I could. You just can’t control the breaks. But maybe I helped the team and that’s all that matters.”

Freshman Evan Hanna ended up low man for Darton with a one-under 71. He had the Cavs’ highest posted score (75, 77) the previous two days.

“I made a lot of putts (Thursday),” he said. “If I was in position in the fairway I tried to make birdies. If not, I played for par. I just tried to play smart.”

Matt Smith, who shot a 71 on Tuesday, birdied 18 to finish at even par and move to third in the overall standings with a 218.

“I doubled 16, then went birdie-birdie after that,” he said. “That was pretty freakin’ cool.”

Jin Chung, who shot a 71 on Wednesday, had to ricochet the ball off a fence on 18 and also bogeyed 16. He finished with a 75.

Chesley Gunn only hit one birdie and finished with a 76.

Coach Dale Dover said that he’s never had to make up six strokes on the final day but Darton could stand a repeat of 2006.

“I think we were down by two and ended up winning by nine,” he said. “It was not a bad day but we had two double bogeys coming in that really hurt us. I’d rather be up by six than down by six but after the way they jumped on us the first day, we’re fortunate to be this close.”

The weather continues to throw something new every day. After 108-degree temperatures on the first day and 45 mph wind gusts Wednesday, the temperature dropped into the 60’s after the lightening delay and the winds kept coming.

Morgan Lee, assistant athletic director at host Phoenix College said that they blew the horn to leave the links after lightening showed up inside the eight-to-20 mile range on their lightening detector.

“Our threshold is about 10 miles,” he said. “Lightening isn’t something that you want to second guess.”

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