This weekend the UR golf team travelled to Ocean City, Md to participate in the Ocean City Collegeiate Classic golf tournament hosted by McDaniel College. This tournament was one of the key tournaments as far as NCAA selection goes. Sixteen teams participated in the tournament, 15 of which are in UR’s region, an ideal stage for the Yellowjackets to perform on.
Unfortunately, UR had another disappointing finish, placing sixth overall in the tournament. The story of this weekend was not very different than the rest of the golf team’s tournaments. The tournament started well but the team could not hold it together for two days. Going into the 18th hole on the first day, UR was tied for first. However, they finished the hole eight over par and dropped into fifth. UR finished day one with a 309, seven strokes out of first. One hole made the difference on day one, but the team sought to take advantage of the second day’s good weather and climb the scoreboard.
As has been the story of the fall, day two spelled disaster instead of success. “It was a beautiful day for golf, and the team was looking forward to moving up, but unfortunately we went the wrong way on the scoreboard and ended up sixth,” said head coach Rich Johnson. On day two UR shot 316, to finish with a total of 625, 26 strokes behind winner Wesley College.
The top finisher for UR was senior Mike Quijano whose 154 earned him a tie for 14th place. The next two finishers for the Yellowjackets were senior Scott Clyde and junior Dave Masters who both shot a 156, which tied them for 22nd in the tournament. “Sunday the putter was cold for me, I was hitting the ball better than on the first day, but I just couldn’t get the ball to drop in the hole,” said Clyde. To sum up the tournament, it was a weekend of near misses and major errors that absolutely handicapped the Yellowjackets.
Finishing in the middle was not what the team expected, and it is getting to a point where they can ill afford a similar finish in the future. UR knew if they wanted to be a top competitor in their region they would have to finish first or second in the tournament. “Needless to say the finish was another discouraging outcome, but we’ll be investigating the reasons for our relatively poor performance and work to correct our problems in hopes of having a very successful spring,” Johnson said. With a sixth place finish UR still has a chance at making nationals, but they will be feeling the pressure to perform come spring time. The spring will contain the Mid-Atlantic Region Invitational. Here, UR will need to take home the title or finish second in order to remain in contention for a bid to nationals. “The team and I agree that there is no reason why we can’t compete with the top teams in our region,” Johnson said. The team will look for hard work and will need to put it all together in the spring in order to be successful.
Fitzsimmons can be reached at afitzsimmons@campustimes.org.
