By Thomas Christian (@ThomasGOATnba) – Reporter
San Jose State men’s golf headed to the Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash., to take part in the Mountain West Championship, from April 29-May 1. They returned with a top-half finish and a sense of belonging amongst some of the top collegiate golf programs in the country.
“We didn’t exactly finish where we wanted to, but the guys fought hard through 54 holes,” said coach John Kennaday. “I’m very proud of the effort that they put in not only today but throughout the entire year.”
A Kotaro Murata hole-in-one started things off right for the Spartans in the first round, but quickly, they fell apart. Multiple middle-of-the-pack finishes by the squad sunk SJSU to the bottom of the pack, unable to find that spark that could send them up the table.
At the end of the first round, the Spartans found themselves in ninth place, but just six strokes separated them from fourth place, Nevada.
Clearly spurred on by the previous day’s mediocrity, all but one of SJSU’s golfers dramatically raised their scores or kept their last, already decent score in the second round. Their efforts totaled in a fourth-best second round team score of 282 on the day, improving by eight strokes.
Carl Corpus and Caleb Shetler both got four strokes better from the first round to the second, each going from a 74 to a 70. However, the most dramatic improvement came from Matthew Heitel, who recorded a 49th ranked score of 80 in the first round but moved on to record a 70 in round two.
The third round went a lot more like round two than round one, but at the end of the last day the Spartans were unable to overcome their shortcomings from the first round. Recording a score of 287 as a team, SJSU tied for sixth place with University of Wyoming with a tournament score of 863.
Murata led all Spartans finishing tied for 15th place with a tournament score of 214. Corpus was close behind recording a 216, good for 19th place.