The DU men’s golf team ended their season this past weekend with a 23rd place finish at the NCAA West Regional held at the Olympic Club at Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash. The Pioneers qualified for their sixth consecutive regional after earning the Sun Belt Conference’s automatic bid when they won the program’s first SBC championship April 23 in Muscle Shoals, Ala.
DU shot a 54-hole score of 55-over par, 919 to finish 53-strokes behind first place USC this past weekend. The top-ten teams at the regional qualified for the NCAA Championships to be held May 28-31 in West Lafayette, In. at the Brick Boilermaker Golf Complex hosted by Purdue University.
“I don’t think the coaches or players on the team were happy with the23rd place finish. We all have expectations of qualifying for nationals or at least giving it a good shot,” said head coach Eric Hoos.
Denver opened the tournament with a 21-over par 309 last Thursday and saw themselves in 25th place after the first day just ten shots back of tenth place. The second day brought even better results for the Pioneers as they shot a 13-over par 301 and moved up to 22nd place and were 16 shots back of 10th place. On Saturday the Pioneers finished the tournament the same way they opened it with a 309 and a 23rd place finish.
DU was led in the regional by junior Jeff Koprivetz who shot a 10-over par, 226 and finished in a tie for 57th place. To say the least Koprivetz had quite an up and down tournament starting off with a four-over par in the opening round and then shooting a two-under par in the second round and then finishing with an eight-over par in the final round.
Next for the Pioneers was junior Danny Wax who finished in a tie for 97th place with a 15-over par score of 231 to finish 26 strokes back of champion Joey Benedetti of Oregon. Also counting scores for Denver were sophomore Espen Kofstad who shot a 18-over par 234 for a tie in 111th place and junior Chris Gilman shot a final round, 77 to finish with a 54-hole score of 235 and in 114th place.
Senior Scott Tashie finished his final college tournament with a 21-over par 237. Tashie played in 39 tournaments in his four-year college career with his best finish coming freshman year at the Thunderbird Invitational where Tashie finished in a tie for 13th place.
Next season Denver will return four of its five counting scores from the NCAA regional and will graduate senior Kenny Palmer along with Tashie.
“I’m excited about the future of the program. With a transfer from TCU, Klinton Krieger and incoming freshmen Troy Anderson, it will give us some depth and make it more difficult to make the travel squad,” said Hoos. “The more competition within the team, I think the better the team will be when it’s time to compete.”
