Flyer Men Look Forward to the Spring After a Third Place Finish at St. Andrews
The Flyers wrapped up the fall season with a third place finish about 10 days ago at the St. Andrews Fall Invitational held at Scotch Meadows Golf Club in Laurinburg. Storbeck finished in third place, four strokes behind medalist Jacob Lowe of Methodist, after rounds of 74-76-150.
Other places and scores for the Flyers included: 4. Trey Capps 76-75-151, T11. Agapion 77-81-158, T14. Austin Freeman 79-81-160 and T17. Ted Sluser 80-84-164.
The team standings were: 1. Methodist B 308-301-609, 2. Methodist C 304-311-615, 3. Sandhills 306-313-619, 4. St. Andrews 325-317-642 and 5. Richard Bland 361-360-721.
Flyers' Coach Gus Ulrich called it a disappointing finish after his team began the second day just two strokes out of first place.
"However, it was a productive fall season and I think the boys realize how good this team can be with Trey, Nick, Teddy, Austin and Thomas, all having solid finishes," he said.
"I think they realize they all can play well. So, the off time will be a good time for them to push themselves and get ready for the spring season. I am excited about this team's potential."
The spring campaign gets underway on March 3-4 with the 2019 Flyers Spring Intercollegiate. Storbeck was a member of the NCAA Division II Concordia-St. Paul (MN) golf team last year, so he will be closing out his Flyer career in the spring.
As a 6-foot-2 guard for the basketball team at Clear Lake High School, he scored 35 points in a basketball game as a junior and poured in 33 in another as a senior. He also played football.
"I came down here on a family trip about five years ago," he recalled. "I wanted to go somewhere warmer to try to improve my game. I've lost track of how many different courses I've played since I got here in August. I love it."
Like Storbeck, the 6-1 Agapion was an excellent outside shooter for his high school basketball team and earned all-region honors as a senior. He was also a member of Gaffney's state champion golf team.
"My roommate is from Iowa and he's taught me a lot of things," Agapion said. "Teddy is from Pittsburgh. We're all different and it's really made it pretty interesting."
Freeman, the only sophomore, is from Troy and Capps is from Garner. Through four tournaments only 30 strokes separate the five golfers overall. Led by Capps at 75.875, the five golfers are only 3.75 strokes apart in average strokes per round. Seeking to crack the lineup is the team's sixth man, freshman Noa Bullough from Union Pines High School.
"We're always playing each other for dinner," Storbeck says. "We're all competitive and we can all shoot low. We want to win every time we tee it up no matter who we are playing."
With a different cast of players, the Flyers finished second for the third time in six years at the national tournament in Chautauqua, NY back in June. They were national champions in 2014.
"Our goal is to win the national championship," Agapion says. "That's the bottom line. I think we can shoot around 295 on an average basis. One through five any of us can go low on a given day."
The Flyers are also looking forward to the challenge of competing against four-year colleges again in some of the spring tournaments. Agapion feels his golf game has improved under the tutelage of Ulrich.
"He's got a great golf mind and he's a great teacher," Agapion says. "His short game is unbelievable. I just love sitting around and picking his mind. It's just really awesome to have him as a coach.
"I think I'd like to stay around the Carolinas. To have the opportunity to come here to a college with all these amazing courses is unbelievable. No other institution in the country provides the opportunity to play the kinds of courses we have here."
C.Bergmann