The James Madison University men’s golf team finished in fifth place at the 2026 Sun Belt Conference Championship on Apr. 30, missing out on advancing to match play at Annandale Golf Club.
The result places JMU fifth among 14 teams after three rounds of stroke play on the par-72, 7,215-yard course. The Dukes completed the tournament with an even-par total score of 864, recording rounds of 290, 280, and 294. Their second-round score of 280 (-8) tied for the lowest round by a JMU team since joining the Sun Belt Conference in the 2022-23 season.
Coastal Carolina, Arkansas State (ranked No. 45), Southern Miss, and South Alabama advanced to Thursday’s match play segment. Individually, Max Bengtsson and Drew Sykes from Coastal Carolina secured first and second place with scores of -11 and -8.
Senior Václav Tichý and junior Jonas DeLeon led JMU with matching totals of even-par (216) over three rounds to tie for twelfth out of sixty-seven competitors. DeLeon’s finish marked his best performance this season; he posted rounds of 75, a career-best tying three-under-par 69 on Tuesday, and a final round of 72. Tichý concluded his collegiate career achieving his twentieth top-25 finish overall and third consecutive top-25 at this championship with rounds of 72, 71, and 73.
Juniors Michael Hake and senior Owen Kose both tied for eighteenth place with three-round totals of +3 (219). Hake shot two even-par rounds before closing with a final round at +3 (75), while Kose’s highlight was a four-under-par round (68) in Tuesday’s session. Freshman Ethan Anderson made his debut appearance at the conference championship by tying for twenty-sixth after shooting an opening-round one-under-par (71), followed by scores of seventy-three and seventy-six.
