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Notre Dame Set For BIG EAST Championship At Warren Golf Course

April 19, 2002

Notre Dame, Ind. – The University of Notre Dame and the men’s golf team will play host to the 2002 BIG EAST men’s golf championship this weekend, April 20-21. The 54-hole tournament will be played on the par 70, 6,744-yard Warren Golf Course beginning at 8:00 a.m. both days. The six teams in the tournament will play 36 holes on Saturday and 18 on Sunday. The tournament champion earns the conference’s automatic bid to the 2002 NCAA Division I Championship.

For the second consecutive season, the BIG EAST has instituted a process in which six teams are selected to participate in the championship. The selection/seeding committee used the following criteria (in no particular order) to select/seed teams: head-to-head results, stroke differential, overall won-loss record, strength of schedule, results versus common opponents, NCAA/Golfstat rating indexes and additional considerations.

Seeded third for the second season in a row, the Irish hope that playing on their home course can give them the edge they need to extend their season.

The Irish will look to senior Steve Ratay (Arlington Heights, Ill.) to duplicate what he did a year ago in the BIG EAST Championship. The Academic all-America candidate won a share of the BIG EAST title along with Virginia Tech’s Brian Krusoe and St. John’s Andrew Svoboda as each golfer shot a five-over par 215 at Metacomet Country Club in East Providence, R.I. Ratay leads the Irish with a 72.81 average, the top single-season average ever at Notre Dame, and has five top-10 finishes on the year.

Joining Ratay in head coach John Jasinski’s lineup are senior Chris Whitten (Rockford, Mich.), sophomore William McCaughan (Key Biscayne, Fla.) and freshmen Steve Colnitis (Baldwin, Md.) and Ryan Marshall (Marco Island, Fla.).

Whitten has played in eight tournaments on the year with and is sixth on the team with a 77.60 average. He tied for 37th in his last outing, the Marshall Invitational, where he fired a 13-over par 226 (78-75-73).

McCaughan has played well in practice over the past few weeks and worked his way into Jasinski’s top-five for the weekend. His only appearance this season came at the Treasure Cove Classic in mid-March where he played as an individual shooting an 83-74-157 to tie for 45th in a field of 108. His average for the year is 78.50.

Colnitis and Marshall are fourth and fifth respectively in scoring for the Irish and have been in the lineup on a regular basis throughout the season. Colnitis owns a 77.10 mark in eight tournaments this year. In his last outing, he struggled at the Johnny Owens Invitational finishing 80th with a 234 (83-74-77).

Marshall is right behind Colnitis with a 77.12 average in seven tournaments and is coming off his best outing of the spring at the Marshall Invitational on April 5-6. There, he tied for 25th with a 224 on rounds of 76, 75 and 73.

The Irish fivesome will have its work cut out for them as defending champion and top-seed, Virginia Tech, comes into the tournament ranked 14th in the nation in the April 14 Golfweek.com rankings and has won three tournaments this season. The Hokies are led by junior Brendon de Jonge, a native of Zimbabwe, who is currently ranked eighth in the nation. He is ranked fourth in District III North and is a semifinalist for the Ben Hogan Award, given annually to the top collegiate golfer.

St. John’s is the tourney’s number two seed and will be looking for its’ 10th conference title. The Red Storm are ranked third in District II by Golfweek.com and are led by juniors Andrew Svoboda (73.66) and Jesse Fitzgerald (74.03).

Rounding out the six-team field is fourth-seed Connecticut, fifth-seed Seton Hall and sixth-seed Georgetown.

This marks the third time that Notre Dame has hosted the BIG EAST Championship. In 1997, the Irish won the third of three BIG EAST titles in a row at Blackthorn Country Club. In April of 2000, the Championship was the first event ever held at the Warren Golf Course. Seton Hall won that tournament by 11 strokes over Rutgers.