The Simon Fraser University men’s golf team was named the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Team of the Week.
The Clan posted two second-place finishes in as many tournaments in the past three weeks, including a runner-up finish at the Cal Baptist Invitational in California last week.
“We got second place at the previous tournament at Notre Dame de Namur, but this was quite a different course terrain wise,” said SFU head coach John Buchanan in a school press release. “This was a bigger tournament with 18 teams and I thought we played pretty well starting off.”
At the event, SFU finished with a team score of 875 (282-292-301), tying Colorado Christian for second place among the 18-team field.
“Anytime you finish that high you don’t feel like you’ve failed, but the lesson learned was that we needed to play it one hole at a time,” Buchanan said of the higher scores of 292 and 301 in the second and third rounds.
SFU was the highest-placing of four conference teams at the tournament and has been the leading Great Northwest school at five of six tournaments this year.
SFU led the field after the first round with a two-stroke lead over the next-best team.
“We came out of the gate and really lit the place up,” Buchanan said of the team’s strong start. “We still have a lot of relatively new players who haven’t been in that type of situation often, but psychologically they will begin to understand how to play ahead.”
Captain Mike Belle of Burnaby led the team, finishing in a tie for 10th place with an even-par 216 (71-70-75). He currently ranks second overall in conference play with an average score of 73.6 over 17 rounds so far this season.
Close behind Belle at the Cal Baptist Invitational was John Mlikotic, who shot a two-over par 218 (70-73-75.
Bret Thompson, the 2013 Great Northwest freshman of the year, was tied for the lead after shooting a 67 in the first round. He finished with a six-over par 222 (67-77-78).
SFU currently boasts a program-high 16th spot ranking in the NCAA Division II Golfstat rankings.
“We are a little bit ahead of where I thought we’d be at this time, so kudos to the guys who have gotten us here,” Buchanan added. “There is certainly not the length of a street between the teams in this conference. We know it is going to be competitive right up until the end of the season and into the conference championships.”
The Clan will return south on April 14, to participate in the Cal State Stanislaus Invitational in Turlock, California, where they will compete against several top west region competitors, including region-leading Chico State University.
