NEW ORLEANS — Following a vote of the conference’s 12 head coaches, Arkansas State’s Julien Sale, Texas State’s Kasper Nyland, Texas State’s Fabian Sunden and Georgia Southern’s Carter Collins received the Sun Belt Conference’s men’s golf postseason honors. The conference office also announced the 2021 Men’s Golf All-Sun Belt Teams Thursday.
Arkansas State’s Sale was named the Sun Belt Golfer of the Year; Texas State’s Nyland was selected as the Freshman of the Year; Texas State’s Sunden was tabbed as the Newcomer of the Year and Georgia Southern’s Collins was dubbed the Coach of the Year.
Sale paced the Sun Belt with a 71.29 scoring average across 21 rounds. The Saint-Louis, Reunion Island, native averaged .71 strokes under par while posting five Top 10 finishes in seven tournament appearances. He was the individual medalist at the Bubba Barnett Intercollegiate and finished tied for ninth during stroke play at the 2021 Sun Belt Men’s Golf Championship.
Nyland led all Sun Belt freshmen and ranked 17th in the conference with a 73.27 scoring average through 22 rounds. The Aarhus, Denmark, product averaged 1.36 strokes over par and had four Top 15 finishes in eight tournaments during the 2020-21 campaign.
Sunden, a transfer from Akron, posted a 73.42 scoring average through 26 rounds—good for 18th in the conference. The Vellinge, Sweden, native averaged 1.50 strokes over par and tallied five Top 15 finishes in nine tournaments this season.
Collins guided Georgia Southern to a 288.87 scoring average—1.67 strokes over par—and three tournament victories during the 2020-21 campaign. The Eagles won stroke play at the 2021 Sun Belt Men’s Golf Championship with a 54-hole score of 35-over par 899 and earned a pair of match play victories en route to this year’s Sun Belt title, the second in program history.
Georgia Southern was the lone program to produce four All-Sun Belt golfers (1 First Team, 2 Second Team, 1 Third Team), while Arkansas State was the sole program with a pair of golfers named to the All-Sun Belt First Team.
Coastal Carolina (3), Little Rock (2), Louisiana (2) and ULM (2) also had multiple All-Sun Belt honorees. 8-of-12 Sun Belt programs were represented among the three All-Sun Belt teams.
Three teams—Little Rock, Arkansas State and Georgia Southern—will represent the Sun Belt in NCAA Regionals, alongside All-Sun Belt selections Zack Taylor of Coastal Carolina, Guillaume Fanonnel of ULM and Timothius Tirto Tamardi of App State, who earned individual berths.
Golfer of the Year
Julien Sale, Arkansas State
Freshman of the Year
Kasper Nyland, Texas State
Newcomer of the Year
Fabian Sunden, Texas State
Coach of the Year
Carter Collins, Georgia Southern
All-Sun Belt First Team
Anton Albers, Little Rock
Julien Sale, Arkansas State
Zan Luka Stirn, Arkansas State
Zack Taylor, Coastal Carolina
Ben Carr, Georgia Southern
Guillaume Fanonnel, ULM
All-Sun Belt Second Team
Timothius Tirto Tamardi, App State
Luka Naglic, Arkansas State
Brett Barron, Georgia Southern
Mason Williams, Georgia Southern
Charlie Flynn, Louisiana
Yannick Schutz, South Alabama
All-Sun Belt Third Team
Logan Pate, Little Rock
States Fort, Coastal Carolina
Seth Taylor, Coastal Carolina
Jake Maples, Georgia Southern
Peter Hinnant, Louisiana
Otto Van Buynder, ULM