State moves up the leaderboard to finish fourth at Old Waverly

WEST POINT – Going into the final round of the Old Waverly Collegiate championship, the Mississippi State men’s golf team found itself at 10 over par and three shots from third place.

The Bulldogs started the day with an 8:50 a.m. tee time and head coach Dusty Smith said his message to the team Monday night about what he wanted to see from them was a simple one.

Smith wanted a certain character show up for the final round.

“Honestly I told the guys (Monday) night that the only thing I wanted to see was I wanted us to be the toughest team out there,” Smith said. “(I wanted them to be) the most disciplined, and the grittiest team out there. That is really all I was looking for.”

The front nine holes were a tough one as the team shot a total of four over, and MSU had to meet the expectations that Smith had set out for them to finish strong.

Smith thought the team was able to rebound in the final round, which was something the team was unable to do in the first round on Monday.

“I thought (Monday) the first round got a little away from us,” Smith said. “I felt like we did not handle our emotions as well as we could have, so that was our only goal, and I felt like we hit a bump in the road there in the front, but our guys showed a lot of resilience in how they finished and I’m really proud of them.”

LSU was able to win the tournament with a nine under for the tournament and 11 under for the day. The Bulldogs found a way to fight back to even part on the back nine and even had a chance to catch Ole Miss with the final groupings. However, MSU was unable to do that and finished the day in fourth place and four strokes behind the Rebels.

One of the ways the Bulldogs fought back was Garrett Johnson, a sophomore from Kimberly,