Posted Online: Posted online: September 9, 2007 11:06 PM
Print publication date: 09/10/2007

Team Iowa finishes strong for Hasley Cup win

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By Tom Johnston, tjohnston@qconline.com

At least Team Illinois made its Iowa golfing counterparts work to retain the Hasley Cup this weekend.

With a great opening two rounds, the two teams of the top players on the National City Bank Amateur Tour were tied at 10 points each in the annual Ryder Cup-style competition. It all came down to the final 20 singles matches and, in the end, turned out to be no contest. Team Iowa won 13 matches with one other being halved to give the Iowa-siders yet another convincing victory, by the score of 23 1/2-16 1/2.

"Singles is where you can really separate yourself and we have not done a good job there," said a disappointed Brian Soucinek, Illinois team captain and the only three-event winner for Team Illinois in the two-day event at Glynns Creek Golf Course. "Everybody tries their dangdest, but we come up short a little bit."

Including a forfeit victory in the first match of the afternoon when Team Illinois player Brandon Seydel was reportedly sick, Team Iowa won nine of the first 10 singles matches to take control. Only Brad Hadley interrupted that run.

Included in Team Iowa's afternoon romp were victories by Kirk Trede (4 & 3 over Shawn Marshall) and Dean Cavanaugh (6 & 5 over Dave Holmes). That allowed Sunday morning's alternate shot partners to both go 3-0 over the weekend.

"It's enjoyable since I've never gone 3-0 before," said Trede, a longtime NCBAm Tour member, applauding his partners for their help in his first two victories. "It's somewhat fulfilling, there's no doubt about that."

The same could be said about the team victory.

"There were some singles matches that were coin-flip matches," said Iowa captain Ben Peters. "Most of those happened to go our way. ... We got the ball rolling downhill pretty fast" with those early victories.

The fact this Hasley Cup was competitive heading into singles was good for the competition. But, like Hasleys past, when it came to singles there was little doubt. A talented, veteran Iowa bunch had the whooping sticks in with their golf sticks and logged their third straight rout.

"I think that had a lot to do with what happened in (singles)," said Cavanaugh of Team Iowa's Hasley dominance. "The Illinois guys may have been thinking `this is our chance.' I think we felt more comfortable going into the (singles) matches because we've played well in those before."

"We're just a little short when it comes to singles," said Soucinek. "We've got talent to compete because it's tied after the first two rounds. Singles is where the little bit better players step up to win their matches when you don't have anybody to lean on. We're just a couple of players short. It's not a negative comment on any of the players we have, it's just a fact."