Augusta, Ga. - For the 13th time in program history, the Augusta men's golf team is set to compete at the NCAA Championship in Carlsbad, Ca. starting on Friday. The Jaguars punched their ticket with a fifth place finish at the Tallahassee Regional a week ago. Now, they are one of 30 teams in the nation left hoping to advance to match play. The tournament format features 54 holes before the field is cut to 15 teams. Then, after a fourth round of stroke play, the field will be down to the final eight who then square off in match play. 

After Augusta's win at the Southland Conference Championship and their fifth place finish at the regional, it's safe to say the team is peaking at the right time.

"The last two events I feel like we've been able to put the pieces together so they guys are feeling confident. We just have to try to make match play and then you never know what happens," said Steven Paine. 

"What we've built is real momentum," said Bo Blanchard II. "I think if you have one or two good days here and there but it's not built off any foundation, I think it's kind of fragile and can fall apart rather easy. But I think for us, it's such a solid foundation and we've been through so much this year, I think it's real and we can use it to our advantage."



Blanchard, Stefan Jacobs and Pieter Rossouw Jr. all finished in the top 11 in the NCAA  Regional and have each played well over the last few events. Jacobs indicated that playing on a regular basis in the spring has been a difference as everyone has gotten into a good routine and have had solid approaches when they step on the golf course.

"We worked a lot on the mental side and routine. Especially going into the post season routine, gets big," said Jacobs. 

The Jaguars took the attitude of playing with house money during the regional and it paid off. AU withstood some pretty intense pressure on the last day to hold off two other teams to get into the NCAA Championshp. The approach will be similar since nobody expected them to be this far, but it doesn't mean they don't expect to be in contention. 

"The pressure is on the top five teams in the country, it's not on us. It seemed to work at regionals since we felt freed up and coach did a good  job of reminding us that every day," said Blanchard. 

"We told the guys, we're not going there to have a vacation, but at the same time let's go and play with freedom and play with house money because there's going to be a lot of teams playing with stress." said Paine.

Omni La Costa Resort and Spa is the host for the National Championships. The Jaguars will play a practice round on Thursday with round one on Friday. Augusta is paired with Troy and California the first two rounds. Tee times start at 11:20 EST for AU. 

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