Over the last three months, the Greenville University Bass Fishing team has competed in six individual events. They traveled all over the area, visiting Kentucky Lake the Lake of the Ozarks for qualifiers. They had quite a successful fall fishing season in which they had at least one team place in every single event that they attended. You can take a closer look at their season and some of their performances here.
Throughout the season as a collective group, they battled many different weather conditions which led to some interesting events, but also to some of their biggest wins of the year. In a particular standout performance in late September, at an event hosted by McKendree University, the Greenville team of Cordell Beckmann and Dru Johnson were the only team in the entire event to reach their fish limit of five fish for the event. This was enough to give the team Greenville’s only first-place finish of the year. The biggest event of the year was the Illinois State Championship and Illinois Bass Nation qualifier where, once again due to the efforts of Beckmann and Johnson, the team finished in second place out of 27 teams. This second place finished moved Greenville from 19th to 17th in School of the Year.
When asking junior angler Evan Seggerman about his team’s performance throughout the year, he said, “I feel like as a collective team, none of us had a bad year. We really all had opportunities and, at least from what I saw, we made the most of them. I think the craziest part about it is that we always had our top group, but we all had our moments and no same team was ever in last place or always struggling.” Also adding the conversation was junior Jordan Phillips. He added, “As a team, we did pretty well, but I really feel like personally I underachieved this season. I just cannot say I that I was great when every week I was not on top. In my opinion, our season was a success, yes, but on a personal level, I need to be better.”
An interesting tidbit about the tournaments that they competed in was that they actually had to pay their own way for three of them. This shows the dedication the team really had to what they do and their love for being out on the water and fishing. Not everyone is willing to pay to go out and fish, but these anglers were more than willing to do so.
Their season has fully concluded for the semester, but when students return to campus in January, the team will be competing in the Bassmaster College Event at Toledo Bend Lake. This is a three-day event in Sabine Parish, Louisiana. The dates of this event are January 23rd through the 25th. Make sure to stay tuned and locked in for the upcoming event in which the Greenville University Bass Fishing team looks to capitalize on and bring home a first-place finish.
Media By Dustin Phelps.
