EMORY, Va. – The spring 2020 season of intercollegiate athletics is one that most certainly will be remembered. Unfortunately, it will not be the excitement of competition, the camaraderie between teammates that leads to lifelong friendships or the pride which comes from representing one's school that will be remembered. The memory will be that the season was cut short. Cut short by a thing so small, but one that has made a huge impact on our world as we know it.

The Emory & Henry College Department of Athletics will take pause over the next four weeks to reflect on these uncompleted spring seasons and look at what was, what might have been and what will be going forward. Some sports were in the middle of their seasons on Friday, March 13 when play was suspended. Others had barely gotten started.

Today, we continue our review with Men's Golf.

Under the direction of second-year Head Coach Bill Mannino, Emory & Henry is assisted by Brent Treash. The Wasps completed four tournaments so far, with three coming during the fall portion of the season. The Old Dominion Athletic Conference is one of the strongest men's golf leagues in the country with three squads (Hampden-Sydney (6), Guilford (11), Washington and Lee (22)) ranked in the Top 25 of the latest GolfStat rankings.

RELATED - ODAC Men's Golf Spring Wrap-Up/All-Conference Teams

In October, the Wasps finished ninth out of 17 programs at the 70th Virginia State Golf Association Intercollegiate, hosted by Roanoke College at Blacksburg Country Club. It was the team's best score to par on the year at (+39) and gave two of the top three team rounds and five of the top 10 individual rounds for the season.

"We had a strong finish at the VSGA event as we closed out the fall," commented Mannino. "We ended up beating several teams that were ranked ahead of us. That finish proved that we can compete with the teams in our conference and other strong DIII teams in the Commonwealth."

RELATED - 2019-20 Schedule

Though the VSGA Intercollegiate was the competitive high-water mark for the Wasps, there were plenty of other highlights to the season as Benson posted his career-best score in the second round of Shenandoah University's Greene Turtle Invitational.

"I was four-under (par)," recollected Benson. "I was playing the best I've ever played and I asked Coach (Mannino) what he saw in a 30-foot putt half way through the round. I didn't expect his response to be, "You've already made three of them this round on your own, so I'm just gonna watch you make another." Sure enough, he wasn't wrong. I drained it right in the center of the cup." 

E&H's balance of youthful experience was beginning to pay off this year, as the fourth-year program saw significant contributions coming from its junior class. Junior Wesley Jones (Seymour, Tenn.) led the way with a 78.00 scoring average while junior transfer Christofer Schaff (Elizabethton, Tenn.) was second on the squad with a 79.25 average. Juniors Isfandyar Khan (Lahore, PAKISTAN) and Blake Benson (Knoxville, Tenn.) scored 80.13 and 80.63 for the year, respectively, as all four players were part of the line up for the entire year.

RELATED - 2019-20 Statistics

"Even though it was not the ending we thought we would have, it was nonetheless the best year I've had and I think the team has had since I've been here," said Khan. "Coach Mannino has done a great job in improving us on the course where we've increasingly become more and more consistent, and this season we were right on the edge ready to go to the next level. But the real impact I feel he's had is off the course. As a team, we have become a lot closer, and that is because of Coach and his vision for what he feels like our goals should be." 

The Wasps got the spring started at University of Lynchburg's Hill City Invitational in early March, but 2019-20 season had two more regular-season tournaments remaining including E&H's own 'Sting in the Spring' at Foxfire Resort in Jackson Springs, North Carolina. The 2020 ODAC Championship was to be held from Sunday, April 19-Tuesday, April 21 at Wintergreen Resort.

"It was sad to not complete the spring," added Mannino. "We were really gearing up for our trip to the beach, hosting in the Pinehurst area, and seeing where we would stack up at ODACs. It just makes me that much hungrier for the fall of 2020."

---E&H---