ALAMEDA, CALIF. - The Sonoma State men's golf team ventured to Alameda to compete in the annual Tim Tierney Shootout. The tournament was hosted by fellow CCAA member Cal State East Bay and was played at the South Course at Chuck Corica Golf Complex. This course featured very undulating and fast greens and some less-than-ideal conditions which put the team as a whole to a great test.
FIRST ROUND:
The first round brought promise as the men got off to a great start. The team has struggled recently with their opening rounds, making placing high in tournaments difficult. The Seawolves starting five played well on the front and shot six-under-par but struggled on the back, finishing one over. This gave them a total score of five-under-par for the first round. Their score had great influence by
Lucas Happy as he shot five-under-par with one bogey and senior
Griffin Pace, who shot two under with five birdies.
Jules Lavigne shot a respectable even par and second year golfer
Trent Colombe shot two over to round out the four counting scores for SSU. Sophomore
Colin Huang was the drop score for the first round at just three over par. This opening round was the second lowest out of the 15 teams in attendance.
SECOND ROUND:
The second round seemed to play more difficult than the first with only four teams managing to play better in the second round than the first. With changing wind and different conditions the Seawolves struggled. During his round, Lavinge had a messy 17th hole, scoring a nine on the par five to put him at four over. Over the remainder of the round though, he fired off four birdies with no bogeys to crawl his way back to even par for the day to lead the team along with
Colin Huang. Pace on the other hand finished his nines of three under and then five over to shoot two-over-par. Colombe once again rounded out the four with a three-over-par 75.
Lucas Happy did not have the success he did last round and shot four-over-par. The Seawolves finished the second round at five-over-par to drop them to even par and in a tie for seventh place at the end of the day.
Day two brought severe winds and rain that came down sideways. The round was delayed until about 9 a.m. and from the beginning, it was a battle. Although the men persevered, the round was eventually canceled after about seven holes of golf.
The men's team brought two individuals to compete who were junior transfer
Moses Greene and sophomore
Alec Padilla. They both played well in the first round with Greene having three birdies to shoot even par. Padilla had five birdies in his round and shot one-under-par. In the second round, Greene shot one-under-par to finish his day at one over, finishing in a tie for 37th place.
Alec Padilla had a better second round and birdied his last two holes to shoot four-under-par. His 68 (-4) would go down as the second lowest score for an SSU golfer behind
Lucas Happy's first round 67 (-5). Padilla's scores of one and four under put him at five under for the tournament and in a tie for sixth place individually. With the cancellation of the third round, the results for everyone were as they stood after day one and two rounds of competition. Padilla was the team's top finisher and picked up his first top-ten finish in his Seawolf career. Happy also picked up a top-20 finish at one-under-par as the team's next best finisher. The team finished in a tie for seventh place along with Western New Mexico.
Sonoma State will take a week off to regroup and seek their first top-4 finish of the spring season at the Hanny Stanislaus Invitational on March 28th. Live scoring link and round by round updates can be found at sonomaseawolves.com. The Seawolves are currently ranked 14th in all of Division II according to the GCAA.
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