MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. – After three days on the 7,407-yard, par-72 Robert Trent Jones at the Shoals course, the Nova Southeastern University men's golf team's season comes to an end finishing 14^th out of the field of 20 teams at the 2017 NCAA South/Southeast Regional Tournament. Despite the team finish, senior Richard Mansell will advance to the NCAA National Championship Tournament scheduled for May 22-24 as an individual.
 
This will be the second year in a row that Mansell has advanced to the national tournament as one of the top two individual regional performers from a non-advancing team. Throughout the 2017 regional, he led the team with a three-round combined score of 209 and finished seven-under-par and in fourth place with two rounds under par.
 
Next stop for Mansell will be the NCAA National Championship in Kissimmee, Florida at the Runion Resort Watson Course. He will compete individually in 54 holes of stroke play. At the conclusion of stroke play on May 24^th, an individual champion will be declared along with finishers 2-10 based on cumulative total score and applicable tiebreakers before match play begins with the top eight teams on May 25th. Last year, Mansell finished tied for fifth after shooting eight under at the national tournament.
 
The Sharks fired their best individual rounds in the final frame of the tournament with Juan Jose Guerra (+6) shooting a team-best 69 (-3) finishing tied for 38^th out of the field of 107. Benjamin Hjort (+12) was tied for 74^th after a final round of 73 (+1), while Khush Patel (+16) and Finlay Mason (+17) finished tied at 85^th and 90^th respectively.
 
As a team, NSU combined for single round scores of 297, 304 and 289 for a three-round combined score of 890 (+26) and 14^th in the team standings. Top-ranked West Florida (-21) won the regional championship by an 11-stroke margin and will advance to the NCAA Championships later this month. No. 5 Florida Southern (-10) finished second followed by No. 2 Lynn (-5) in third. No. 7 Florida Tech (+8) and No. 3 Barry (+11) finished fourth and fifth respectively and each will move on to the national tournament.
 
Since the South/Southeast Regional receives seven berths based on the regions represented in the 2016 medal/match portion of the championships, sixth-place Newberry (+18) and seventh-place North Alabama (+19) will also advance to the national finals.
 
Winning the region individual title was Florida Southern's John VanDerLaan. The junior captured the individual medalist honors after a record-breaking 15-under par 201, which was the best score ever at a South or South/Southeast Regional.