NEW YORK – Marquette’s Oliver Farrell has been voted BIG EAST Player of the Year and teammate Tyler Leach has been named BIG EAST Freshman of the Year in men’s golf by a vote of the conference’s head men’s golf coaches. Marquette also won BIG EAST Coaching Staff of the Year honors. In the balloting, the coaches were not permitted to vote for their own players.
Farrell, a native of Worcestershire, England, has been the top-ranked golfer in the BIG EAST, according to GolfStat. Currently ranked 32nd nationally, he posted six top-10 finishes in nine tournaments during the year and finished lower than 15th only once. Farrell finished sixth at the BIG EAST Championship with a 2-over-par 218 which included a tournament-tying low score of 69. He is the first player in Marquette program history to earn All-BIG EAST honors for all four years, including first team accolades for the past three years.
Leach, a native of Spring Valley, Wis., was the top freshman finisher at the BIG EAST Championship. He took seventh place, one stroke behind Farrell, with a 3-over-par 219, which included under par scores in the second and third rounds. During the year, Leach had three top-20 finishes in nine tournaments.
The Marquette coaching staff is led by Steve Bailey, who is in his ninth year as head coach. This year, Bailey’s squad won its third BIG EAST Championship in the last five years. In this season’s Championship, the Golden Eagles finished 24 strokes ahead of runner-up DePaul. Trake Carpenter is in his second year as an assistant coach. Marquette has secured BIG EAST Coaching Staff honors in four of the last five years.
As BIG EAST champion, Marquette earned the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship. The Golden Eagles will make their fourth NCAA appearance, playing in the Austin Region on May 13-15. Marquette is a No. 8 seed out of 14 teams, its highest ranking in program history. The 2019 BIG EAST champions entered postseason play at No. 43 nationally in the Golfstat team rankings.