Oct. 2, 2006
LOVELAND, Ohio - With a five-man line-up that includes four freshmen, the Northern Illinois men's golf team didn't make enough birdies to move into contention and finds itself 16th after the first day of the 2006 Xavier Invitational at the Oasis Golf Club in Loveland, Ohio. NIU shot rounds of two-over par 290 and nine-over 297 at the par 72, 6,921-yard course.
Despite shooting a team score of two-over par in the morning round, Northern Illinois stood in 13th place in the 18-team field. After the afternoon action, NIU fell back to 16th, five strokes behind 15th place Ball State. Marshall and Davidson are tied for 13th at two-over 578, nine strokes better than NIU.
"It's a course where you should make birdies and we didn't make them," said NIU Head Coach John "There are some tough holes too, but we didn't take advantage of the `gimme' holes. We played pretty well this morning, but in the afternoon, we took some big numbers and that hurt us."
Freshman Andrew Frame (Manteno, Ill.) led the Huskies as he shot 71-72 to post a one-under par 143 through 36 holes. Fellow freshman Matt Triplett (St. Charles, Ill.) is two strokes behind Frame as he carded rounds of 71 and 74 for a one-over 145. Junior Zach Jecklin (Bloomington, Ill.), the only upperclassman among NIU's five-man squad, is at three-over 147 after round of 73 and 74 while Tim Kay (Bartlett, Ill.) came in at eight-over 152 (75-77).
Maryland's Tyler Whitman and Xavier's Jason Kokrak share the individual lead at 10-under par 134. The Terps also lead the team competition by three strokes over second place Austin Peay with host Xavier third.
With 18 teams in the field, the 36-hole schedule Monday meant that the teams spent 11 hours on the course.
"It was a long day," Cleary said. "We waited to play every shot. We need to hit our wedges better and we need to play the par fives better. We played some of the toughest holes well, but we did not play some of the easier holes well.
"Tomorrow, we want to go out and post a good number and see what happens. This is a good field and it's our first time playing this type of course with a young team."
The 54-hole event concludes Tuesday with 18 holes beginning at 8:30 a.m.
TEAM SCORES
1. Maryland 282-271=553 (-23)
2. Austin Peay State 274-282=556 (-20)
3. Xavier 276-284=560 (-16)
4. Wichita State 282-281=563 (-13)
5. Eastern Kentucky 280-284=564 (-12)
6. New Orleans 279-287=566 (-10)
7. Eastern Michigan 280-287=567 (-9)
8. Bowling Green State 282-286=568 (-8)
9. Campbell 287-284=571 (-5)
10. Akron 292-280=572 (-4)
Marquette 286-286=572 (-4)
12. Western Illinois 282-293=575 (-1)
13. Marshall 297-281=578 (+2)
Davidson College 288-290=578 (+2)
15. Ball State 291-291=582 (+6)
16. Northern Illinois 290-297=587 (+11)
17. Drake 300-291=591 (+15)
18. Miami (Ohio) 300-302=602 (+26)
NIU SCORES
T41. Andrew Frame 71 72 143 (-1)
T51. Matt Triplett 71 74 145 (+1)
T58. Zach Jecklin 73 74 147 (+3)
T83. Tim Kay 75 77 152 (+8)
T90. Greg Bauman 75 80 155 (+11)
-- NIU --
