State sports briefs

FOOTBALL

UCA hires new DL coach

Central Arkansas' football team will have a new, albeit familiar, face on its coaching staff when it reports for fall practice today.

Larry Hart has been hired as UCA's new defensive line coach, Coach Steve Campbell said by phone Sunday. Hart, a former UCA defensive end who was named Southland Conference Defensive Player of the Year in 2009-2010, will take over for Dan Augustine, whom Campbell said resigned to take a job out of football.

Hart, who played two seasons at UCA following two years at Holmes (Miss.) Community College, has spent the last two seasons as a graduate assistant at Arkansas State.

"That timing is never great, but at least it happened before we got started," Campbell said. "And, we could have searched far and wide and not gotten a guy like Larry. He's an alum who knows the area and wound up playing in the NFL and knows the junior colleges."

Hart was drafted in the fifth round of the 2010 draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars. He also spent time with the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders and the Canadian Football League's Calgary Stampeders.

Campbell said Matt Kitchens, who also coaches safeties, will take over special teams coordinator duties also left open by Augustine's departure.

-- Troy Schulte

GOLF

Eoff teeing off in Western Amateur

Austin Eoff of Benton begins play Tuesday in the Western Amateur at Knollwood Club in Lake Forest, Ill.

Eoff, a senior at Purdue who has won the past two Arkansas State Golf Association championships, missed the cut in last year's Western Amateur at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill.

Also scheduled to tee off today are former Arkansas golfer Nicolas Echavarria of Colombia and current Razorback junior Alvaro Ortiz. Echavarria finished tied for 33rd in stroke play last year but did not advance to match play.

The tournament has two rounds of stroke play before a preliminary cut to the low 44 and ties, then two more rounds before a final cut to 16 for match play.

Dawson Armstrong of Brentwood, Tenn., won last year's Western Amateur and is back to defend his title.

The tournament is scheduled to conclude Saturday.

May wins Cotton States Invitational

Garrett May of Hope defeated Blaine Hale 1 up on Sunday in the final of the Cotton States Invitational at Bayou Desiard in Monroe, La.

May, a sophomore at Baylor, had a 2 up lead through 15, until Hale, a sophomore at Oklahoma, won the 16th. The two halved the final two holes giving May the victory.

May, the sixth seed of the tournament, advanced to the championship with a 4-and-2 victory over Blake Collyer.

-Democrat-Gazette Press Services

Sports on 08/01/2016

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