Cole Anderson of Camden and Caleb Manuel of Topsham will return to the NCAA Division I golf regionals next week with their respective Florida State University and University of Georgia teammates.
The regionals will be held from May 13-15.
Anderson and his Seminoles will be the top seed at the Stanford Regional held at the Stanford Golf Course in California while Manuel and his Bulldogs will be the fourth seed at the Austin Regional in Austin, Texas.
There will be 14 teams at the Stanford regional and 13 in Austin.
The top five teams from each regional will advance to the 30-team NCAA Championships at the Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California from May 24-29.
The NCAA Championship involves three days of stroke play after which the 15 teams with the lowest scores advance. There is one more day of stroke play after which the final eight teams will advance to a match play format where two teams square off in quarterfinals and semifinals to determine who will meet in the final.
An individual champion will also be decided based on four rounds of stroke play golf.
Georgia has earned its 28th consecutive trip to a regional while Florida State is making its 18th appearance in a row.
Anderson, who is a redshirt senior, posted three top 10 finishes in 11 tournaments this season and his per-round average was 71.58 which is fifth-best on the team and third-best among those who played in at least 10 tournaments.
The Seminoles tied for second in the stroke play portion of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Charlotte, N.C. last month and Anderson won both of his matches in the match-play portion as his Seminoles beat Georgia Tech 3-0 in the semifinals before losing to North Carolina 3-1 in the championship round.
Anderson played in two of the three rounds in the stroke play competition and shot a 74-71.
Manuel, a senior, played in eight tournaments and his 72.38 scoring average per round was fifth best on the Georgia team.
His best finishes were ties for 22nd at the Calusa Cup tournament in Florida and the Linger Longer Invitational in Georgia.
But Manuel will go into the regional with some momentum as he finished tied for seventh with a four-under-par 206 at the Southeastern Conference tourney in St. Simons Island in Georgia and then won his match play round against Arkansas’ Thomas Curry 2 & 1 in the quarterfinals.
However, Arkansas won the match 3-2.
Last season, Anderson tied for 29th in the stroke play portion of the NCAA Tournament with a four-over-par 284 at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona and Manuel tied for 63rd with an 11-over-par 291.
Anderson was a second team Golfweek All-American and a third team PING All-American a year ago as well an All-ACC pick.
Manuel transferred to Georgia from the University of Connecticut and, in his first season as a Bulldog last year, he tied for second in the NCAA Bath Regional in Michigan with a seven-under par 206.
Former Mt. Ararat of Topsham star Manuel was the Big East Rookie of the Year at UConn and was a two-time All-East selection.
Manuel, who played in the 2022 U.S. Open, won back-to-back state Class A individual championships at Mt. Ararat (2018, ‘19) and led the Eagles to state team titles each year.
He has won the last three Maine Amateur championships.
Anderson won three state individual titles for Camden Hills High School in Rockport, sharing the 2017 title with Anthony Burnham from Scarborough.
He was runner up to Manuel in 2018, losing by one stroke.
Anderson won back-to-back State Amateur titles in 2019 and 2020.
Manuel, whose home course is the Brunswick Golf Club, was the Maine State Golf Association’s Player of the Year in 2020 and 2021.
Anderson, who plays out of the Samoset Resort Golf Club in Rockport, was the state’s Player of the Year in 2019 and finished tied for third in the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour’s Live and Work in Maine Open at the Falmouth Country Club in 2022.
