Men's Golf | April 21
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Battling cold and windy conditions this weekend, the Northern Illinois University men's golf team tied for seventh place at the Robert Kepler Intercollegiate hosted by Ohio State at the OSU Scarlet Course.
"We had a solid performance this weekend for all 54 holes," said head coach
John Carlson. "All five of our guys contributed as we get ready for the MAC [Mid-American] Conference Championship next week. We saw most of the MAC teams the last two weeks and it gives us an idea of where we are."
"The Scarlet Course prepares us in a way where we still have to play smart shots. The demand is so high on this course or anywhere at any conference championship where you're going to have to be disciplined into the greens and hit fairways and avoid three-putts. That's what we did this week to put ourselves in a position to win and we expect to do the same thing at Chatham Hills next week."
The Huskies started the tournament Friday with a team score of 12-over par 296 and tied for 11
th. Sophomore
Ian Bruchhauser (Temecula, Calif./Great Oak) led NIU in the opening round with a one-over par 72 as
Ben Sluzas (Lockport, Ill./Lockport) and
Felix Krammer (Waakirchen, Germany/Arkansas State) each posted rounds of 74.
On Saturday NIU was one stroke better with a 295 but moved five spots up the leaderboard into a tie for sixth at +23. Senior
Zach Place (Roselle, Ill./Lake Park) had his best round of the weekend in the second round with a one-over par 72. Krammer and
Craig Long (Alpharetta, Ga./Milton) each posted rounds of 74 as Sluzas rounded out the scoring group with a 75.
Sluzas posted the lowest score for NIU this weekend in Sunday's final round, carding an even-par 71. He made three birdies on the front nine and was one-under for the day before a bogey at 18 put him at even. Sluzas finished in the top-20 for the fifth time this season, tying for 18
th place with a 54-hole score of seven-over par 220.
Krammer and Place each finished tied for 27
th at nine-over par. Place posted a final round 73 on Sunday as Krammer had his third straight round of 74. Long also posted a 74 on Sunday, making birdies on the final two holes to get him to three-over for the day and 11-over for the tournament. The freshman tied for 38
th place for his best finish of the spring season.
"It took Craig the fall to get comfortable, but now he's rounding into form and understanding the demands of college golf setups," Carlson said. "He's playing smarter, executing better and finding his confidence at the right time."
NIU had its best team score of the weekend on Sunday with an eight-over par 292. The Huskies tied for seventh at +31 with Colorado State and Kansas City, one stroke back of South Dakota State and Dayton who tied for fifth.
"We did a good job today of eliminating double bogeys from the scorecard," Carlson said about the final round. "We got it up and down in spots when it was possible. We hit a lot of really good iron shots on the par-threes which were demanding. Playing in the morning today, we tried to put a score on the board and the teams in the afternoon came back but not quite as far as we had to go any further."
NIU begins its defense of its MAC title on Friday, April 26 in the first round of the MAC Championship, held this year at The Club at Chatham Hills in Westfield, Ind. The tournament runs through Sunday, April 28.
--NIU--
