Behind a season-best out­ing from senior Kyle Wittenbach, the Bulldogs’ men’s golf team placed 11^th out of 25 teams at the NCAA-II Midwest Region Tournament II this weekend.

At the two-round tour­na­ment, which was held at the Cherry Blossom Golf Course at Georgetown, Ky., Wittenbach posted a score of 144 on the week­end to fin­ish tied for sec­ond with Wayne State’s Steve Fedewa and Casey Pyne from Lewis University. Thomas Hay from Drury University claimed the first-place hon­ors with a one-under par score of 143 in two rounds of play.

“The con­di­tions were tough and it was a deep field. My goal was to win, so com­ing up short at the end was rather dis­ap­point­ing,” said Wittenbach.

The Bulldogs shot a 304 team score in the first round on April 2 and tal­lied a 305-stroke out­ing in the final round on April 3 to fin­ish the week­end at 33-strokes over par. Missouri-St.Louis took home first-place hon­ors with a score of 588 (+12) for the tour­na­ment. Wayne State fin­ished seven strokes off the lead to clinch sec­ond place.

“Overall, as a team we made a good amount of progress since last week in Alabama,” said Wittenbach. “Considering the progress we have made since just last Tuesday, we know what we need to improve on and how much we have already improved hav­ing prac­ticed for eight days since October.”

No other Bulldog fin­ished in the top-20 indi­vid­ual places, as the next clos­est Bulldog was senior Garrett Simons with a 23^rd-place score of 150 (+6), tying with 11 other golfers.

Junior Ian Straayer fin­ished inside the top 50 with a score of 153 (+9) to fin­ish with a claim of 46^th place.

Ferris fin­ished the first round in a tie for fifth before slip­ping to 11^th, despite shoot­ing just one stroke over its first-round score.

Up next for the team is a trip to Noblesville, Ind., to com­pete in the NCAA-II Midwest Region Tournament III on April 10–11. The tour­na­ment will be held at the Purgatory Golf Course.

Wittenbach said the team will take advan­tage of the prac­tice round to get used to the course at Purgatory. But while the team will look to come out vic­to­ri­ous this week­end, Wittenbach said the team has its sights set a lit­tle down the line.

“We have our sights set on the Super-Regional in four weeks, which hap­pens to be at Cherry Blossom, where we just played,” said Wittenbach. n