Posts tagged UCI

Juel-Berg Ties For 10th, Buffs Rally From Eighth

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. — The University of Colorado men’s golf team rallied for a fourth place finish here Tuesday as the UC-Irvine Anteater Invitational came to a close.

The Buffaloes started the day in eighth place after two uncharacteristically bad rounds on Monday, but rallied to shoot the best team score on Tuesday (by some six shots) and the second best round overall in the tournament.

Long Beach State (ranked No. 85) won the event with an 891 team score (27-over par), edging Cal State-Fullerton (No. 90) by three shots; the two entered the final round tied for the lead.  Host and No. 77 UC-Irvine finished third (895), with Colorado overtaking four schools to finish fourth with a 42-over 906 total.

The Buffaloes were the highest ranked team competing here (No. 71 in the latest Golfweek rankings), and played like it Tuesday.  Assistant coach Jon Levy coached the team here, as head coach Roy Edwards was in Kansas City attending his grandmother’s funeral.  Levy had said after Monday’s play that, “This is the kind of golf course that if you have a good round, you can leapfrog a lot of teams, and that’s our goal (Tuesday) to go out and do just that.”  He turned out be absolutely correct.

“We absolutely held to our game plan today, and that was the difference,” Levy said.  “This was a tough course, probably one of the toughest we’ve played all year.  Our game plan was to play conservatively and let the other teams make the mistakes.  We knew we would have to take some bogeys, but let the other teams make the big numbers and we’d be satisfied with pars on the tougher holes.  The pin locations were challenging and the greens were firm, but we did a great job of not short siding the ball today.  We literally improved 100 percent on that.”

The five Buffs competing here totaled 17 birdies compared to just 16 for two rounds on Monday, and recorded just 19 bogeys, both bests in the 11-team field Tuesday.

Starting on No. 10, a deceivingly hard hole, CU scored four bogeys and a quadruple, but the players were in the right frame of mind out of the gate: no one in the 69-man field birdied the hole and only 25 were able to score par.  From that point on, the four players who scored for CU collectively played even par golf the remaining 18 holes.

Freshman Philip Juel-Berg paced the Buffaloes here, as he tied for 10th after finishing up with a 1-over 73 for a 7-over 223 total for 54 holes on the 7,060-yard, par-72 El Niguel Country Club course.  He had a team-best six birdies Tuesday, with six pars, five bogeys and a double.  His 11 birdies for the tournament led the Buffs and also tied for the third-most in the field, as did his playing the par-5 holes at 5-under overall.  His 15 holes over par were also a team low as he finished in the top 10 for a second straight tournament.

Senior Jason Burstyn turned in CU’s best score in the final round, a 1-under 71 that propelled him into a tie for 21st (up from 40th); he finished with an 11-over 227 score and he closed with an eagle, three birdies and 10 pars against four bogeys.  He was 2-under at one point before scoring a pair of quick bogeys, but he came back with his eagle on the par-5 sixth hole to get back under for the round.  He was the lone Buff not score worse than a bogey the entire tournament.

Senior Derek Fribbs and redshirt freshman Drew Trujillo tied for 24th individually (after both entered the day tied for 35th); they each scored 2-over par 74s to wrap things up, closing with 13-over 229 totals.  Fribbs had three birdies and 11 pars in his round (against three bogeys and a double), closing on a wild ride his last four holes (birdie, double, bogey, birdie), while Trujillo had two birdies, 12 pars and four bogeys; he was 3-over after 10 but had his two birdies on the way in.

Sophomore David Oraee finished with a second consecutive 78, giving him a 23-over par 239 total, which tied him for 52nd.  He opened with a quadruple bogey 8 on No. 10, when his drive kicked to the left and went out of bounds by all of three inches, and then followed that up with a double on No. 11, but then was able to gather himself and finish the remaining 16 holes even, scoring three birdies, 10 pars and three bogeys along the way.

Loyola-Marymount’s Connor Campbell claimed medalist honors, closing with a 1-under 71 that gave him a 216 total – the only player in the field to shoot par or better for the tournament.  He defeated second round leader, Long Beach State’s Daniel Chin, by one stroke.

“We wanted to build some momentum today going into a really big event coming up,” Levy added.  “That was the message we talked about last night.  Play loose, don’t play so tight; out there and have some fun.”

The Buffaloes will now head up the coast to Palo Alto, where they will compete in the Stanford U.S. Intercollegiate this Thursday through Saturday.

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