CU men’s golf team wins championship
Mar 11th
Burstyn Third, Four Buffs In Top 20
The University of Colorado men’s golf team turned in one of its finest performances of the year in winning the Bandon Dunes Championship here Sunday.
The Buffaloes had four players finish in the top 17 in recording a 2-under par 862 team score, the only one in the 17-team field that was under par as CU posted two of its best single round scores this season the last two days to earn the win. Colorado spent the entire tournament in either first or second, and was never out of the lead the final 30 holes.
The Buffs, ranked No. 79 this week, defeated eight teams ranked ahead of them in going from worst to first in consecutive tournaments for the first time in program history; two weeks ago, CU was 15th out of as many teams in The Prestige at PGA West. That accomplishment topped the 1998-98 team, which opened the spring with a 17th place finish out of 18 teams in the PING-Arizona Intercollegiate but bounced back to win the Southwest Classic its next time out.
It was Colorado’s second major tournament win of the season, as the Buffs won the Air Force Falcon Invitational last September, and also enabled CU to climb back over the .500 mark against Division I teams, improving to 58-52. CU’s last spring tournament victories came in 2008, with wins in both the Louisiana Classics and the Ohio State Kepler Intercollegiate.
Fresno State zoomed into second place, but still finished five shots behind the Buffaloes (867) despite playing the last six holes at 11-under par. No. 3 Washington also turned in a 9-under par final round but couldn’t catch CU in taking third with an 873 score. Rounding out the top five were No. 49 Oregon (874) and No. 14 SMU (882).
It was CU’s first win over a Top 5 team since 2004, when it won the Western Intercollegiate over No. 4 Georgia Tech, and its first against a team ranked third or higher since the 1994 NCAA Central Regional, when the Buffaloes finished second, one spot ahead of No. 1 Oklahoma State.
“The credit really goes to the guys, they did a phenomenal job,” Colorado head coach Roy Edwards said. “Even though we finished where we did in Palm Springs, we played better (than in the spring opener at Hawai’i), we just had too many big numbers. From that standpoint, I definitely saw improvement. The guys were motivated to come out and compete this week and prove that they’re a good team and we definitely did that.”
This is just the fourth time in program history that the Buffaloes have won two major tournaments in the same season, and the first time they have one at least one in both the fall and spring seasons. Three of the four times have happened under Edwards, who is in his seventh year as head coach.
“I know the guys have been working on being more consistent, being generally smarter than they had been with their play,” Edwards said. “We were never too high or too low, the guys were calm this morning and they expected to do well, despite the last couple of tournaments.”
How consistent was CU this weekend? For the 15 rounds combined (270 holes), the five Buffaloes combined for only five double bogeys, zero in the last 179 holes, and no scores worse; they had 50 birdies and 53 bogeys in playing a season-best 79 percent of the holes at par or better.
Senior Jason Burstyn paced the Buffaloes for the seventh time in nine tournaments this season, closing with a second 1-under 71 on the 6,859-yard, par-72 Old Macdonald Course, giving him a 2-under 214 which tied for third, four strokes out of the lead. He flirted with medalist honors early after birdying two of his first five holes and went on to post his third top five finish this season, his fourth in the top 10.
Burstyn completed the tournament with 10 birdies and 37 pars against just six bogeys and a double. He lowered his team-leading stroke average to 71.9, as added to his bests of 15 rounds of par or better, including 12 subpar rounds.
“I felt like I made some pretty good par putts to keep my momentum going,” Burstyn said. “I had a few three putts, but I made a lot of lag putts from 50 feet or so. These greens are tough, big and have a lot of undulation. I have a new driver and I was able to keep it low, under the wind, and that’s been helping as well.”
He had some help for really just the second time this year, as CU had a season-best four players that counted toward the team score in the top 20, and matched best with three at par or better.
“It’s always great to see your teammates play well, and that definitely takes a little pressure off,” Burstyn said. “I still want to do my best no matter what, but it still makes things a little easier. I am proud of everybody.
“We still didn’t even get to practice that much for this tournament,” he added about preparing for Bandon Dunes. “We’ve seemed to be indoors forever. It’s almost like we play better when the conditions are worse. Even two years ago, our first time out here, we played pretty well. The warmer climate teams aren’t used to this, even though the last two days here weren’t bad at all, at least to us.”
Sophomore David Oraee got off to a hot start Sunday, birdying his first three holes (Nos. 2-4) en route to carding a 2-under 70, CU’s best score in the final round. That gave him a 1-under 215 overall, tying him for sixth place, his second best finish of the year. He had four birdies, 12 pars and two bogeys, giving him 11 birdies and 34 pars on the weekend, against just eight total bogeys and a double.
Freshman Philip Juel-Berg also posted his second best finish of the year, fashioning a 1-under 71 Sunday for an even-par 216 total, tying him for ninth place. He opened with a bogey, but after scoring a par reeled off three quick birdies in succession before playing the last 13 holes at 1-over; he had a team-best 12 birdies in the tourney and was the only Buff not score worse than a bogey.
Senior Derek Fribbs carded a 2-over 74, which gave him a 2-over 218, tying him for 17th. He had one of CU’s two low rounds of the tournament (a second round 70), wrapping things up Sunday with three birdies, 10 pars and five bogeys; he had 11 birdies and 31 pars on the weekend. He had one bad patch in the final round (bogeys on Nos. 9-10-11), otherwise would have also been under par for the meet.
Redshirt freshman Drew Trujillo closed strong, as he was playing in his first tournament where his scores counted toward the CU team total. His first two here did not, but his final round 1-over 73 did, as he cruised around with two birdies, 13 pars and just three bogeys to finish with a 15-over 231 total, tying him for 73rd. He birdied his first hole for the second straight day, and would have turned in an even-par effort had he not bogeyed his last hole (No. 2).
Fresno State’s Troix Tonkham claimed medalist honors, as he closed with a 69 for a 6-under 210 total, good for a three-shot win over teammate Rufie Fessler.
“This certainly is a confidence builder,” Edwards said. “I think everyone was frustrated because we knew we were a good team but we just weren’t showing it. It also shows the resolve of the team because it proved that they could come out and beat a lot of high quality teams. All we did was to just put things together a little bit better. College golf nowadays is so competitive, if that you are a little off, you will get beat and sometimes beat badly.”
This was the seventh tournament win under Edwards, snapping a tie with the late Les Fowler for the second-most in a coaches’ reign at CU; the late Mark Simpson’s teams won 16. Both coached at the school for 29 seasons.
The Buffaloes return to action in two weeks, when they will travel to California during CU’s spring break to participate in the Cal-Irvine Anteater Invitational (March 25-26) and the Stanford U.S. Intercollegiate (March 28-30).
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CU women fall to Stanford
Mar 10th
Story by B.G. Brooks, Contributing Editor, CUBuffs.com
The usual script for the CU women is to struggle in the first half and come back in the second to win. Stanford reversed the script Saturday night.
For just over a half Saturday night, the Colorado Buffaloes showed they could stay with powerful Stanford. Staying with Chiney Ogwumike and remaining in touch with their game proved to be much more difficult for the Buffs.
Behind Ogwumike’s 25 points and 19 rebounds, the top-seeded Cardinal finally pulled away from the fourth-seeded Buffs for a 61-47 win and advanced to Sunday’s Pac-12 Conference Tournament championship game at KeyArena.
The fourth-ranked Cardinal (30-2) plays No. 3 seed UCLA (25-6), which upset No. 5 seed California 70-58 in Saturday night’s first semifinal.
“I’m proud of how we played; we played hard the whole game,” CU coach Linda Lappe said. “I liked how intense we were for about 30 minutes and then I thought our missed shots began to affect our demeanor . . .
“Stanford is a good team for a reason; they execute when they need to execute. We’ve got to understand that teams that are good are going to make runs and not beat themselves. We have to go get it. As you get in the NCAA Tournament you understand it’s one-and-done . . . I have no doubt we’ll be ready to go.”
Losing for the first time in 11 games, the No. 18 Buffs (25-6) now will wait until Selection Sunday to see their NCAA future – and it should be bright. CU hosts first- and second-round NCAA Women’s Tournament games at the Coors Events Center on March 23-25. Chances appear good that the Buffs will open the tournament on their home court.
The Buffs held a 28-27 halftime lead Saturday night, with their defense to thank. The Cardinal shot just 28.1 percent (9-for-32) in the first 20 minutes, and had it not been for Ogwumike, Stanford would have been deep in the woods with no way out.
The 6-4 junior was scoreless for the game’s first nine minutes, but once she got going, the Buffs had a hard time handling her.
“She’s good . . . a tough load in there,” Lappe said. “She plays a lot of minutes, she’s fit, strong and has a good skill set. I thought we made her work for everything she got – that was one of our goals. I thought in the end her rebounding hurt more than anything else.”
Lappe was right about the Buffs making Ogwumike work for her points. In her 39 minutes, Ogwumike hit just nine of her 24 field goal attempts but was 7-for-10 from the free throw line. The Cardinal attempted 29 free throws, making 22, while the Buffs only attempted four, making three of those.
Over the first half’s last 11 minutes Ogwumike scored 14 of the Cardinal’s 18 points. And by halftime she had a double-double, collecting 10 of Stanford’s 21 first-half rebounds. The Cardinal won the board battle 43-37. Stanford also outscored CU 26-16 in the paint and got 18 points off of the Buffs’ 15 turnovers. The Cardinal committed 10, resulting in 13 Buffs points.
Stanford, said CU senior Chucky Jeffery, “started getting the ball into Chiney and started knocking down shots . . . we weren’t making shots and that got us in a little slump. We couldn’t sustain anything and couldn’t get on a run to answer. Bottom line is we couldn’t knock down our shots.”
CU junior post Rachel Hargis opened on Ogwumike and was doing a credible job until picking up her second foul. The defensive chore then went to, among others, redshirt freshman Arielle Roberson and true freshman Jamee Swan.
“She’s a really good player, very strong, physical and active,” Roberson said. “We managed and held our own for a time.”
During that time, the Buffs needed to be more efficient offensively, but couldn’t. “Defensively we were outstanding,” Lappe said. “Without the last few minutes there we held them to about 55 points (it was 55-42 with about six minutes remaining). And when you hold Stanford to 55 points you have to win. We missed a lot of good shots, we took good shots, but we didn’t knock them down. You can only hold them for so long before they start to build that gap.”
With a team-high 19 points, Jeffery moved into sixth place on the school’s career scoring list. Roberson added 10 points and eight rebounds, and junior Brittany Wilson added contributed six points, three of them on the 100th three-pointer of her career.
Jeffery was high scorer with 19 points
If the Buffs were leading by only a point at halftime, they believed they were sending a larger message. At halftime of their first meeting in Boulder, CU trailed by 17. Three weeks later at Stanford, the Buffs trailed by nine at the break.
The Buffs went on to lose both games by double figures, so Saturday night they measured major progress at halftime with a single digit. Lappe liked her team’s first-half effort, but added, “We’re not into moral victories; we’re not happy that we were ahead at halftime. We wanted to win the game.”
CU got a three-pointer by Lexy Kresl to open the second half and took a 31-27 lead. But Stanford caught up quickly at 36-36 and just kept going. The Cardinal got a conventional three-point play from Amber Orrange, a Sara James trey and two free throws by Ogwumike to take a 41-36 lead with 13:05 to play.
It was the largest lead of the night by either team and in a bump-and-grind game like this it looked even larger. And it grew.
After two empty Buffs possessions, a pair of baskets by Mikaela Ruef completed a 9-0 run and opened a nine-point (45-36) Stanford lead. With 10:38 remaining, CU needed a timeout, and if the Buffs weren’t fully on the ropes, reaching out to them was no problem.
Stanford took its first double-figure lead (49-38) on a pair of Ogwumike free throws, then she added two more points with a steal and layup with just over nine minutes to play. The Cardinal increased its advantage to as many as 15 in the final three minutes.
“We competed well for a huge portion of the game,” Lappe said. “We stopped defending a little and that’s when they went on their run. We have to learn how to score and step up against good teams when they make a run.”
Jeffery said the first half and the early portion of the second 20 minutes showed the Buffs that, “We’ve got a lot of fight in us, we showed a lot of resilience in that first half. To hold the No. 4 team in the nation to that type of half was good for our team. We know what it takes and we know we have to take that extra step and put a 40-minute game together.”
The 14-point loss, she added, “doesn’t take away from our confidence . . . we’re not down. We just have to regroup for the NCAA Tournament.”
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