The Region XI Division II Men's Golf Championships will be held on April 30 and May 1 at The Preserve at Lake Rathbun in Moravia, Iowa. ICCAC Division II Men's Golf teams will be going head-to-head and joined by two teams from Region IX, Southeast (Neb.) and Central (Neb.). The tournament will serve as the qualifier for nationals with the top three teams and four individuals from teams not in the top three advancing.
There will be a lot of highly ranked teams at the regional meet with three teams ranked in the top-10 and seven teams ranked in the top-20.
Kirkwood finds themselves at the top of the rankings out of the group, currently sitting at No. 2 in Division II. The Eagles have won five tournaments this year as a team and have only finished outside of the top two in all but one tournament this spring.
Kirkwood has a solid lineup from top to bottom but their top golfers all season have been JD Pollard and Kolby Shackelford Both are currently ranked within the top 40 in the nation with many top five placings individually. The Eagles have won the last six qualifiers.
Iowa Central and Northeast also find themselves in the top-10 as of now after having winning seasons so far.
Iowa Central has had a few more wins as a team this spring and are currently ranked at No. 9 in the Division II. For the most part they play very well collectively and consistently have people in the top-10.
Justin Schnipper has been one of the most reliable players for Iowa Central with a handful of top-5 finishes and is currently ranked in the top-50 in Division II. The story is similar with Northeast who have a consistent team and are currently coming off two tournament wins in the last three weeks and are ranked #10.
Several golfers have finished at the top of the team for the Northeast Hawks, but Ty Heimes has seen his name at the top the most with three top-10 finishes this spring.
One of the teams who falls just outside of the top-10 is DMACC who is currently ranked at No. 11. The Bears have had some up and down tournaments and individual play this season but played their best golf recently at the Verhille Invitational. At the meet DMACC defeated Kirkwood by six strokes and had three golfers tie for first place. Their top golfer this season has been Tyler Sansgaard whose adjusted average score this season has been 74.89 and is currently the #52 player in Division II.
Southeast (Neb.) is currently ranked No. 12 in Division II with several top placings as a team and solid individual play. The top golfer for the storm this year has been Geronimo Narizzano, the 41st ranked player in the country.
The Hawkeye RedTails have had a great season so far with three team wins. On the individual side, Tom Bell has been the top golfer this year with two individual wins, a school record and is the 29th ranked player in Division II.
Rounding out the list of ICCAC schools in the competition are Iowa Lakes, Southwestern, NIACC and Southeastern. All three have seen a little bit of success as teams and each have golfers ranked in the top-150 nationally. All around these teams are extremely similar so it will be interesting seeing these teams all go head-to-head.
Link to Preserve at Lake Rathbun Course Information
Past Team Champions
2021 - Kirkwood
2020 - COVID-19
2019 - Kirkwood
2018 - Kirkwood
2017- Kirkwood
2016 - Kirkwood
Past Individual Champions
2021 - James Morgan - Kirkwood
2020 - COVID-19
2019 - James Morgan - Kirkwood
2108 - Dawson Peters - Kirkwood
2017- Max Thrune, Avery Fuhs - Kirkwood, DMACC
2016 - Carson Whittington, Jordan Even - Kirkwood