Rafferty helps Sam Houston to victory

Fergal Rafferty helped his Sam Houston State University team to a second victory of the season as he secured an 11th-placed finish at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock First Tee Collegiate tournament.

Rafferty, from Carrickmore, Co. Tyrone, recorded a 10-over-par 226 (75, 73, 78) at the par 72, 7,221-yard course at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock for his third top-15 finish of the 2007-08 season.

The sophomore, a former Ireland Under-18 international, was the Bearkats’ third man home of five as the Huntsville, Texas-based college won the tournament with a score of 893 (301, 290, 302), six strokes better than runners-up Central Arkansas.

Sam Houston State also won the Battle of the Bend tournament in Louisiana last November when Rafferty was also 11th. The Irishman’s best finish of the campaign so far was his fifth place at the Texas-San Antonio Invitational.

The Bearkats have two more tournaments before their regular-season ending Southland Conference Championships begin on April 14 at Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Among Rafferty’s rivals that week will be compatriots Thomas Kearney, a senior at Texas-San Antonio, and Southeastern Louisiana’s Aaron O’Callaghan. Donegal’s Kearney tied for 57th on 241 (81, 77, 83) in Little Rock.

Corkman O’Callaghan, meanwhile, travelled to Hawaii with his Southeastern team for the ninth Annual Kaua'i Collegiate Cup at the par-72, 6,981-yard Wailua Golf Course. The Lions came away with a fourth-place finish at the 54-hole, 11-team event, won at a distance by Vanderbilt on 855, 28 strokes better than defending champions Oklahoma Christian with Gonzaga (893) and Southeastern (899) following.

O'Callaghan’s contribution in a tournament that saw just four rounds under 70 was a total of 238 (83, 75, 80) for tied 44th place.

He and his team-mates return to action next Monday when Southeastern hosts the fifth-annual Carter Plantation Intercollegiate in Springfield, Louisiana. The 15-team competition is a 54-hole event.

Also teeing up on Monday will be Irish Walker Cupper Johnny Caldwell as the University of South Alabama hosts the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate at Heron Lakes Country Club.

Caldwell and his fellow Jaguars will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing tied 11th team finish at the Linger Longer Invitational in Gainesville, Georgia last weekend.

South Alabama carded a 54-hole score of 898, 42 shots adrift of winners Ole Miss, which shot an eight-under par 856.

Caldwell, from Belfast, tied for 25th place on 222 (73, 73, 76), 14 strokes back from the individual medalist, Robbie Greenwell (208) of Memphis, whose women’s team, including Dubliner Dawn Marie Conaty, tied for eighth in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational.

Conaty shot 238 (80, 79, 79) to tie for 30th as Memphis shot a collective 956 at the 16-team, 54-hole event.

Banbridge golfer Ciaran McAleavey saved the best for last as he closed out the 2008 Pinehurst Intercollegiate with a round of one-over par 73 at the 7,035-yard Centennial Pinehurst No. 8 course in North Carolina. That helped to earn the University of Toledo senior a tie for 39th place at 228 (76-78-73).