Finishing the final day of the Sac State Invitational shooting 7-over par 295, the UCSB men’s golf team was able to rebound from a poor start in the first day of the invite to finish fourth.
For UCSB, this is its first time finishing in fourth place this season. It has earned one-first place finish and two-second place finishes this season. The fourth-place finish was also a nice change of pace from its 16-place finish at the John A. Burns Intercollegiate three weeks ago.
After Monday’s first round, the Gauchos were 16-over par and were ranked near the bottom of the 12 teams competing. In the second round, however, UCSB shot an 8-under par 280, the best round of the tournament, to get back in contention.
Sophomore Brett Bennett had the best individual finish of all the competing UCSB athletes tying for third place after shooting 2-under par 214.
Junior Nick Swanson also finished in the top-20 with a 5-over par 221 to tie for 18th place. Sophomore Matt Moomjian was right behind him shooting 7-over 223 to finish tied for 26th while senior Brandon Bauman was 13-over par and tied for 42nd.
Senior Willy Moffly rounded out UCSB’s lineup with at 15-over 231 to finish in 51st of the 72 total competing athletes.
Long Beach State’s junior Joe Fryer won individual medalist honors finishing 6-under par 210 putting him two shots ahead of UC Irvine’s David Kim and four better than Bennett and Grand Canyon’s senior Vinnie Murphy.
Overall, a fourth-place finish was a solid way to end the invite especially after starting it off so poorly. Now, UCSB has no time to rest as it will take part in the Jackrabbit Invitational starting this Friday for its final invite of March.
The tournament is hosted by South Dakota State in Boulder City, Nevada and will sport 15 teams including Santa Barbara.
The other participating teams are No. 21 UCLA, No. 35 UNLV, No. 70 Nevada, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville, Weber State, Northern Kentucky, Binghamton, Creighton, Youngstown State, Detroit and Alabama State.
UCSB will be expected to use the same five that it had participate in the Sac State invite.
Santa Barbara will participate in the Jackrabbit Invitational on Friday, March 10th and Saturday, March 11th beginning with first tee set to being at 7:15 a.m.
