Men's golf makes charge on second day, falls short at Temple Invitational

The men golf's team achieved their first top-five finish of the season by taking fourth place at the Temple Golf Invitational last weekend. With an impressive second day in which it only lost to St. John's, the team managed to move up through the field and end up in the top five.

Even though the team's goal is always to win, the team definitely improved on their tenth place finish in the James Madison Invitational two weeks ago.

"We're always out there to win," junior Nat Hoopes declared, "but we also have to realize that we're playing great teams."

Maryland captured the title with a two-round total of 589. Temple didn't benefit from their home-course advantage and lost by one stroke, taking second place with a 590.

St. John's led the scoreboard on the second day and took the third spot with 598. Princeton's two-day score was 607.

The Tigers were coming from a mediocre participation in the James Madison Invitational, where they took a hold of the tenth place. Everything pointed to a repetition of that tournament after the first day of competition, when senior co-captain James Milam carded an 81.

However, Milam dealt with the situation and scored a 69 on the second day, leading Princeton with a two-day score of 150. Sophomore Greg Johnson, who turned in a 153, and juniors Nat Hoopes and Cassidy Traub, with 156 each, followed Milam in the team scoreboard. Freshman David Huestis, who had led Princeton in the James Madison Invitational with a two-over par 144, carded 158.

"We did pretty well," junior Nat Hoopes affirmed. "Our results were, in general, pretty impressive, especially on the second day."

His reason to say this is that on this day of competition, even though the rain and wind were causing other schools' scores to rise, the Tigers managed to be second-best after St. John's. Nevertheless, their lack of consistency on the first day didn't allow their total score to defeat those of the first three teams.

But not everyone is that optimistic.

"The results are actually disappointing," Milam declared. "for the most part, nobody played to their ability or at least not close to them." The Tigers finished 18 strokes away from the leader, and the co-captain isn't happy with that.

Hoopes agrees with him, saying, "our potential is much larger, we just haven't been able to get everyone to play well at once."

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The Tigers have to work on their consistency in order to reach their goal: finishing in the top four in the district so they can be exempt from the NCAA regional tournament.

"We've been trying to get together as a team, but we just haven't been able to do that," Huestis said.

The horizon points to the Stabler Invite next Thursday. Princeton is the defending champion in a tournament where Maryland's participation is still uncertain. "We definitely expect to win," Hoopes ended. Nevertheless, if the team's consistency doesn't get better, the Tigers will be disappointed.

"It will be a very nice tournament with 15 or 16 teams," Milam added, "with a bit of luck we will be able to defend our championship."

The only feeling of preoccupation comes from the fact that the Tigers' consistency is certainly not at its highest. The team is capable of much more and the players all know that. Perhaps that same feeling can motivate them into playing much better this week.

"Hopefully we'll get everyone to play well at the same time," Huestis finally said. "This hasn't happened yet."