Miners Win Stroke Play Portion of C-USA Tourney, Notch Top Seed In Match Play

by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | UTEP (Local) RSS

TEXARKANA – The back nine of the Texarkana Country Club golf course was the breakaway point for the UTEP men’s golf team as they pulled away from their tie with North Texas to take sole possession of first place in the final round of stroke play at the Conference USA Men’s Golf Championships and the top seed going into tomorrow’s match play.

The Miners shot 15-over 879 (287-294-298) to best North Texas, who came in second with 19-over 883 (283-297-303) and third place Charlotte, who shot 28-over 892 (289-292-311). Middle Tennessee and Southern Miss tied for fourth with 29-over 893 and will battle in a one-hole playoff tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. CT for the fourth and final spot in the match play portion of the tournament.

The winner will face UTEP while Charlotte and North Texas will compete in the other semifinals match play, with the winners battling for the C-USA team championship.

The first round of match play at the Texarkana Country Club (par 72/6,969 yards) tees off at 7:30 a.m. CT concluding with the second round at 12:30 p.m. CT to determine the 2017 Conference USA Men’s Golf Champion.

Charlotte senior Seth Gandy fired a 2-under 214 (67-71-76) to take individual medalist honors.

“First things first, our goal was to get to the match play, whatever seed it was,” sixth-year head coach Scott Lieberwirth said. “Fortunately, we are the No. 1 seed heading into match play, but tomorrow everything is wiped clean. We have to come out and take care of business in the first match. We’re not sure who that’ll be, the playoff [between Middle Tennessee and Southern Miss] will run tomorrow morning. Whoever we get, we know we’re going to get their best shot. We have to show up ready to go.”

The Miners were the only team in the tournament to have a three round total below 300.

“Throughout the day, and in the afternoon especially, we had a pretty large buffer on those teams trying to make the match play cutoff,” Lieberwirth said. “The golf course was playing extremely difficult this afternoon, the greens were extremely firm and fast as well, that made for very difficult scoring, plus being the second round of the day that these student athletes were playing, fatigue was setting in. It was an extremely long day, but I thought our guys really hung in well. We played that back nine well. I think that was more than anything why we pulled away. We just kind of hung in there and kept playing reasonably well. North Texas and Charlotte both struggled coming in late, which, to be honest, was not hard to do, it was really tough out there.”

The last time the Miners made the match play portion of the Conference USA Championships was in 2015. Though they fell to UAB that year, UTEP’s finish of third place marked the best placing in program history since the institution entered Conference USA in 2006. The team just missed out on last year’s match play when they placed fifth in stroke play.

All five Miners placed in the top-50, but three placed in the top-10. Junior Charles Corner spearheaded the Miners’ run, firing 3-over 219 (73-70-76) to finish in sixth place, five strokes out of first place. Corner made birdie on hole No. 16 in the final round and his second round score of 70 was the lowest of the day for the Miners.

Frederik Dreier and Aaron Terrazas helped the Miners’ first place effort, tying for seventh with 4-over 220. Dreier shot a round of 77 and 72, collecting four birdies, two on the front nine and two on the back nine while bogeying four times on the difficult back nine. Terrazas fired 73 and 74 while tallying a birdie on hole No. 8 and only bogeying once on the back nine.

“They were solid,” Lieberwirth said of Corner, Dreier and Terrazas. “Especially the spring, we haven’t had any great individual performances, meaning top-5s or wins, but we have had consistent, solid play out of all of those guys. They were great. Freddie got a couple of unlucky breaks on the last nine holes, but he played very well. Aaron was solid, start to finish, but you know I feel like we’ve got a group of very solid players that I trust and that I feel confident going into tomorrow with.”

Breaking into the top-20 was Andreas Sorensen, who shot 7-over 223 (70-77-76), finishing with four birdies, three of which came in the third round, to finish with a share of 17th place. Nicklas Pihl rounded out the Miners’ scorecard in a tie for 42nd with 17-over 233 (79-74-80). The junior saw his best round of the tournament in his score of 74 in round two.

“I’m proud of how my guys played,” Lieberwirth said. “They did a great job. I wouldn’t say that was the best day of golf that we’ve played all year, but that was some of the toughest golf we’ve played, without question. I credit my guys for hanging tough.The scores didn’t look great, but the effort that was given and the way that we fought over the last nine holes, I’m very proud of that.”

The Conference USA men’s golf champion will be crowned following the results of the second round of match play. Live stats will be available via golfstat.com.

“You have a good field in this conference, as you can see by the scores,” Lieberwirth said. “We understand nothing is given at this point. In match play, anything can happen. We just have to show up tomorrow and be the better team.”

2017 Conference USA Men’s Golf Championships Stroke Play Final:

Team — Score
1. UTEP – 287-294-298=879 (+15)
2. North Texas – 283-297-303=883 (+19)
3. Charlotte – 289-292-311=892 (+28)
T4. Middle Tennessee – 294-292-307=893 (+29)
T4. Southern Miss – 296-299-298=893 (+29)
6. Marshall – 297-299-304=900 (+36)
7. UTSA – 302-300-300=902 (+38)
8. UAB – 295-298-310=903 (+39)
9. Rice – 299-308-298=905 (+41)
10. WKU – 299-306-305=910 (+46)
11. Louisiana Tech – 307-302-310=919 (+55)
12. Old Dominion – 307-296-317=920 (+56)
13. Florida Atlantic – 307-314-318=939 (+75)

Men�s Golf Team Prepares for C-USA Tournament

by Dr Alex Jimenez DC, APRN, FNP-BC, CFMP, IFMCP | UTEP (Local) RSS

The UTEP men’s golf team will join 12 other teams at the 2017 C-USA Men’s Golf Championship, teeing off Sunday morning at the Texarkana Country Club in Texarkana, Arkansas.

The teams will play the par 72, 6,969-yard course over three days, April 23-25, beginning with 54 holes of stroke play. Following the results of stroke play, the top four teams will advance to a seeded match play round on Wednesday, April 26, with the team champion earning C-USA’s automatic berth to the NCAA Regionals.

The Miners will begin to tee off at 9:20 a.m. CT (8:20 a.m. MT) on hole No. 1, along side top-seeded Middle Tennessee and North Texas. Seeding is based on current Golfstat rankings, Middle Tennessee is ranked No. 53, while UTEP sits at No. 55 and North Texas is No. 62 out of 292 teams. Rice and UTSA will tee off on hole No. 1, while defending champion LA Tech will tee off with Southern Miss and WKU on hole No. 10, all at 8 a.m. CT. At the 8:40 a.m. CT mark, Charlotte and UAB will begin their play on the first tee. Rounding out the teams will be Marshall, FAU and Old Dominion with a 8:50 a.m. CT start from the No. 10 tee.

“National ranking, its really been us and Middle Tennessee bouncing back and forth between the top ranked schools in our conference,” sixth-year head coach Scott Lieberwirth said. “But our conference does have quite a few schools that may not be ranked quite as high, but they’re still strong quality programs. North Texas is very good, Charlotte is good year in and year out, UAB has been a power team in our league for a long time; and then you can mix in others like UTSA, and Rice, who just came off a win.

“There’s a lot of teams that are capable of winning this championship. Especially with us going into match play and having that portion decide who our team champion is, I’d say there’s about eight or nine teams that have a legitimate chance [to win], its just a matter of who plays better.”

The core five vying for the championship for the Miners will be Frederik Dreier, Charles Corner, Aaron Terrazas, Nicklas Pihl, and Andreas Sorensen. In the 11 tournaments played, the at least three of the five have played in every tournament. Terrazas transferred from Oklahoma and began playing in the spring.

“We are going strong into the tournament instead of reeling into the tournament, so we feel like we’ve got a very strong and a very deep core,” Lieberwirth said. “That should help us not just in the stroke play, but if we were to make it in the match play portion of the championship, we should be able to be highly competitive. From a depth perspective, we’re the best that we’ve been all year.”

Dreier, Corner, Pihl, and Sorensen all participated in the 2016 C-USA Championships last year, helping the Miners to a sixth place finish.

“We have a very similar team to last year,” Lieberwirth said. “We have a majority of our starters returning, they’re all one year older and defiantly have all improved. Last year we had a nice team, but this year I think we’ve really broken out and individually. We’ve had guys really have some great performances in the fall and spring. We’ve been very consistent top to bottom in the spring.”

Dreier, the lone senior on the team, is the reigning C-USA Golfer of the Year, only the fourth golfer in program history to earn the honor. The Birkeroed, Denmark, native leads the team this season with total top-10 finishes (six) as well as the squad’s lowest round (64) in the final round of the Price’s Give ‘Em Five Invitational. He will enter his final conference tournament, where he placed sixth last year to earn his first ever berth to the NCAA Regional tournament, where he finished in 57th.

“He’s been fantastic, watching him grow from his freshman and sophomore year when he was just so close to being really good, and then really turning the corner his junior year and continuing that into his senior year,” Lieberwirth said of Dreier. “He’s been a leader on and off the golf course for us. He’s defiantly a guy that all the players and us coaches really look up to and respect.”

Corner earned his first ever C-USA Golfer of the Week honor on April 12 after his stellar play led to an eighth place finish and helped his team to a seventh place finish at the prestigious 71st Western Intercollegiate. The team bested then-No. 17 Texas, No. 25 Arizona State and No. 32 San Diego State after shooting 1,084 (361-356-367) in the 15-team field, which included eight nationally-ranked teams. Of the 96 players, Corner’s score was better than 19 players ranked in the Golfstat Top 100, including six of the top-10 players. The junior from Cayuga, Ontario, Canada has recorded a 72.5 scoring average, third-best on the UTEP squad, and tallied three top-10 finishes this year in 10 tournaments, with his work at the Western Intercollegiate marking the first time he was the top finisher for UTEP this year.

Terrazas joined the Miners this spring after transferring from Oklahoma and has found his name in the top-250 of Golfweek collegiate rankings. The sophomore had his best showing in the Orange and Blue at the Lone Star Invitational, where he tied for sixth with 7-under 209.

Pihl has recorded back-to-back top finishes for the Miners at the National Invitational Tournament and the Border Olympics. The junior boasts a 73.3 stroke average in 29 rounds played while finishing in the top-50 of each event eight times.

Sorensen has two runner-up showings under his belt from the fall season as well as eight top-50 finishes in 11 events. Along side three top finishes for the Miners, the sophomore has a 72.75 stroke average and shot a career-low round of 66 in the opening round of the Price’s Give ‘Em Five Invitational. He was named the C-USA Golfer of the Week for the week of Sept. 14, his first ever, after his runner-up performance at the Gene Miranda Invitational helped the Miners to their first team title of the fall. He was on the C-USA All-Freshman team last year.

“Charles Corner has put together a quiet, very good year,” Lieberwirth said. “Aaron Terrazas, a transfer from Oklahoma who came in spring for us, has already got his name ranked in the top 250 in the country just in the five tournaments that he’s played and started for us, he’s been great too. Nicklas Pihl, this is probably his best semester from a consistency stand point, he’s always been right there between the top-10 and no worse than middle of the pack. We’ve got a bunch of guys that we can count on and that we are going to give us good, consistent performances.

“That’s probably the biggest difference between this year’s team and previous teams. Previous year’s teams were more of a wild card, we knew we had some talent, we just didn’t know which guy would show up on any given day. This team is fairly predictable, we know we’re going to get great effort and we’ve seen very good results.”

The conference tournament will be the beginning of the end of an incredible season for the Miners, which saw three tournament titles in the fall and 10 top-10 finishes in eleven tournaments.

“We had some really outstanding individual performances that allowed us to win,” Lieberwirth said. “This spring, we haven’t had those top-10, top five, individual performances as often, but more tournaments than not, we’ve had all five starters in the top half of the field. From depth perspective, that helps us. We just need one or two of those guys to really catch fire, that’s when we’ll be real dangerous.”

The Miners also have eyes set beyond the conference tournament, at the NCAA Regional tournament, where the goal is to make it as a team.

“These are extremely competitive players, which makes it a real joy to coach,” Lieberwirth said. “When you have players that are as or even more competitive than the coach is, then you know you have a good team on your hands. That’s exactly how these guys are. They want to win for the team but they want to win individually too. I think that’s good, you want to have those individual goals because if you perform well individually, then the team is going to take care of itself.”