| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Golfers Finish Eighth At NCAA Central Regional Release: 05/18/2013 Courtesy: David Plati, Associate AD/Sports Information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Colorado men’s golf team moved up one spot into an eighth place finish here Saturday in the NCAA Central/Fayetteville Regional, but it wasn’t enough to advance to the NCAA Finals later this month, thus ending the season for the Buffaloes. No. 33 Illinois rallied to win the event with an 863 team score, 1-under par for the three rounds. The Illini bested host and No. 12 Arkansas (864), which took a one stroke advantage into the day after wrestling the lead away from first round leader Illinois. No. 4 Texas finished third (880), followed by No. 11 Oklahoma State (882) and No. 22 Kent State (892). The same five teams occupied the top five spots after all three rounds. The top five teams in the field advanced to the NCAA Finals, set for May 28-June 2 in Atlanta, Ga., along with the top two individual not associated with the five teams that qualified. The Buffaloes, ranked No. 58 by GolfStat and No. 67 by Golfweek, were in ninth place and 11 strokes back of fifth at the start of the day. Early on, CU closed to within eight shots of the Golden Flashes, but could get no closer in shooting 21-over for round (309) and finishing with a 47-over total of 911. “It may not appear that way because the score was a stroke lower, but we had a better day today – the course played its hardest of the three days,” head coach Roy Edwards said. “It was tough, and it would have taken a special round, almost an extreme round to qualify (catch and pass Kent State for fifth). The guys had a great effort today, the key was yesterday, we just let it get out of hand. Had we played better in the second round, we would have given ourselves a legitimate shot today to advance.” Senior Derek Fribbs led the Buffaloes, tying for 21st after closing with a 5-over 77 on the 7,251-yard, par-72 The Blessings Golf Club course layout for an 8-over 224. He opened with six start pars and then got it to 1-under after making birdie on No. 16; but he played the next 10 holes at 7-over (three bogeys, two doubles in that span), but ended his career with a birdie on No. 9. He had five birdies over the three rounds, with his 35 pars tied for the fifth most in the 75-man field. Freshman Philip Juel-Berg finished with a 4-over 76, CU’s best score of the day, which gave him a 10-over 226 total that tied him for 30th. He bogeyed three of his first four holes before reeling off nine straight pars and then would wrap up his impressive true freshman year with a birdie on No. 9. He had five birdies, 34 pars and 15 bogeys in the regional, also ending his year with seven consecutive rounds where he did not score worse than bogey on any hole. Juel-Berg finished tied for seventh out of the 14 freshmen in the field (all true, no redshirts) and his 34 pars were the eighth most overall. Sophomore David Oraee fashioned a final round 6-over 78 to give him a 13-over 229 score, tying him for 39th; he had two birdies, nine pars, six bogeys and a double Saturday. He had just three of the pars on the back nine but stood only 1-over after birdying No. 16, but couldn’t get any other birdie putts to fall the remainder of the round. His first round 1-under 71 was CU’s best single round effort here, and his eight birdies were the second most by a Buffalo. Senior Jason Burstyn wrapped up his collegiate career with a 6-over 78, which have him a 16-over 232 total, tying him for 47th. He had three birdies and nine pars against three bogeys and three doubles Saturday; his 10 birdies for the week were a team best and also tied for 14th in the field. He was undone by the fact that he had almost as many holes over par (21) as he did pars (23). He was 1-under through seven holes after back-to-back birdies on Nos. 15 and 16, but doubles on Nos. 18 and 3 sent him well into black numbers for the round. Junior Johnny Hayes tied for 66th with a 29-over 245 total, as he closed things out with an 8-over 80. He was actually 8-over after seven holes, enduring a triple bogey on No. 12 and a double on No. 16, but then settled down to play the rest of the way even; he parred the next nine holes before making a bogey on No. 8 but finished with a birdie on No. 9. He had 31 pars for the week, third-most for the Buffs, but had a team-high seven holes of double bogey or higher which accounted for 19 of his 29 strokes over par. Edwards made special mention of his two graduating seniors who participated here, Burstyn and Fribbs. “Those two guys played in a ton of events for us over the last four years,” Edwards noted. “We’re going to miss them; they’re great people and were great representatives for CU. They are Buffs forever, and I couldn’t be more proud of any two people than I am of them.” “We definitely had a really good season -- if we had advanced from here, it would have been a great one,” Edwards concluded. “I am certainly very proud of our team, proud of our seniors and pleased with the direction that the program is heading.” NOTES: The Pac-12 sent 10 teams into regional play, the most of any conference, and five have moved on to the NCAA Finals: California (won the Pullman Regional), UCLA (won the Tempe Regional), Washington, USC and Arizona State ... The average score in the field Saturday was 77.31, up from 77.07 (second round) and 75.55 (first round); the average score for the week was 76.64 (CU’s was 77.07, 75.92 by the four daily scorers, 81.67 by the fifth score that was thrown out) ... Burstyn finished as CU’s stroke average leader with a 73.12 figure, edging Fribbs (73.32) by eight strokes over 41 rounds; Fribbs finished ahead of Burstyn for the top average in the spring (73.79 to 74.17; Juel-Berg was a close third at 74.25) ... Fribbs finished his CU career with 146 rounds played, fourth most in school history, while Burstyn played 134, the 12th most ... Colorado came into the meet tied for third in the nation with 20 eagles, but scored none here (USC led with 23, Houston was next with 21). The Buffs also were sixth in greens-in-regulation (65.9 percent) and seventh in fairways hit (70.4), numbers that will drop a bit in the next national rankings ... Juel-Berg played 41 rounds this season, tying him for the school record for the most ever by a freshman, true or redshirt; Terry Kahl played 41 as a true frosh in 1976-77 ... Juel-Berg’s 73.95 season stroke average was the third best by a freshman in school history, behind Kane Webber (73.03, 1999-2000) and Matthew Zions (73.76, 1998-99) .... Colorado finished with 18 holes of double bogey or worse (15 doubles, two triples and a quintuple totaling 41 strokes over par); the seventh fewest in the field; eight came on Saturday.
|
