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Aggies finish 7th in postseason preview
PENSACOLA, Florida (April 8) – Facing off against some of the elite teams from the conference, the region, and the entire nation, the Aggie men’s golf team this afternoon concluded final round play at the Emerald Coast Collegiate tournament. The tournament was played at the Tiger Point Golf and Country Club in Pensacola, Florida. The event was hosted by West Florida University, the No. 1 men’s golf team in the nation.
After all three rounds concluded the Cameron men’s team finished in 7th place out of an overall 17 teams. Their total team score was 903 (294-292-317). Host WFU won the event with a three-round score of 858 (281-286-291). WFU’s Kyle Scott took home the individual title with a score of 206 (66-70-70). A total of 91 golfers participated in the tournament.
“I’m relatively happy,” Head Coach Jerry Hrnciar said. “Yesterday we played good, solid golf and didn’t make too many mental mistakes. Today we did not play the same way. The weather changed a lot and obviously made it more difficult, as the scores will indicate. We played the par-fives very poorly which kind of sealed our fate.”
The ECC was Cameron’s final regular season tournament before postseason play begins. Prior to the event Coach Hrnciar described the ECC as a “mini-regional” team because of the high number of regional and national teams that were in competition. With this week’s 7th place finish, the Aggies were able to stay ahead of many of the teams they were hoping to stay in front of heading into the postseason.
“We held our own. We wanted to beat certain teams and had a chance to beat some top ten teams,” Coach Hrnciar said. “We didn’t quite get that done but we did beat everybody that was behind us (in the regional rankings). We even beat a few teams that were ranked higher than us. Except for today I thought we had a heck of a tournament.”
Junior Peter Svajlen once again led the Aggie men after finishing in a tie for 5th place overall. His three-round score was 216 (70-70-76). Svajlen was in 3rd place after Monday’s first and second rounds.
Senior Cane Shumaker and sophomore Robbe Trout were the only other Aggies to finish in the top fifty golfers. Shumaker and Trout finished in a tie for 19th and 49th place, respectively. Shumaker shot a total score of 223 (72-72-79) while Trout recorded a 232 (76-74-82).
Sophomore Michael Lee finished with a very solid three-round score of 236 (80-76-80). He finished in a tie for 61st place overall.
Rounding out the five Aggie scores was sophomore Brett Leavell who took home a tied 75th place finish. His tournament score was 242 (76-79-87).
Individual statistics such as scoring averages, number of birdies, etc., were not made available following this event.
In the most recent GolfStat.com and Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) the Aggies moved up a few spots. CU moved from No. 32 to No. 29 in the latest GolfStat.com poll, while moving from No. 24 to No. 23 in the latest GCAA poll.
“We are hitting the ball better and making better decisions,” Coach Hrnciar said. “We’re making progress but today was a bit of a set back. Up until today we have been showing some real improvement.”
As mentioned previously, Cameron’s next action comes in the Lone Star Conference Championship tournament played from April 21-22 in Thackerville, Oklahoma. The event will be played at the WinStar Golf Club. Live scoring for the event will be available via the Lone Star Conference website (lonestarconference.org).
“We are going to work on our short game and figure out how to play par-fives,” Coach Hrnciar said. “Those will be the two big things in practice. If we improve in those two areas then we’ll be in pretty good shape.”
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