Winona State University’s men’s golf team finished the Washburn Invitational in Topeka, Kansas on March 23.
The invitational included 16 schools, of which Winona State placed seventh.
Washburn University won their home meet with a team score of 861, only 57 points ahead of Winona State, who placed with 918 points.
Fourth-year Matthew Chandler placed eighth overall in the tournament out of 100 players.
He scored a 222, which tied him with players from both Missouri Western and Northeastern State.
“He really proved to everyone how good of a player he is,” second-year Matt Turner said.
Chandler has had a powerful season as he was selected as the Winona State golfer to watch
this season.
In Las Vegas, Nevada at the Warrior Invitational, he shot a 77, tying him with four other golfers at 11.
Four of the players were in the top 20 at the first meet of the season, each of whom hope to keep improving.
While the team is disappointed about their overall results, Chandler’s performance is one that guides the team, so his individual success was still a highlight.
The team hopes to do better in the next few weeks of tournaments.
Third-year Dylan Brown placed 32 overall with a 231 while third-year Abraham Elmore placed 43 with 235 points. Second-year Matt Turner placed 49 with 237 points. Finally, first-year Markus Iwerbo placed 54 with 238 points and second-year Bailey Callander placed 82 with 250 points.
The team placed two points behind Northeastern State and three points behind Concordia-St. Paul.
This tournament’s performance puts the Warriors on a neutral ground in the season so far, hopefully to be improved upon.
“We all just need to stay within ourselves and play the golf that each one of us is capable of playing,” Turner said. “Then we’ll get to where we want to go.”
With Washburn University in first place overall, the second and third place teams were Missouri Western State and Southwestern Oklahoma State with 870 and
894 respectively.
Winona State men’s golf has had an overall successful season as they started in Las Vegas finishing fourth out of ten teams before moving on to the Washburn Invitational.
Starting on Monday, March 29, the team is in Kansas City, Missouri at the Regional Preview.
“This team has a lot of potential,” Turner said. “We need to get to work and prove that starting this week.”
The Regional Preview this week is hosted by both the Warriors and Bemidji State.
Following this week’s Regional Preview in Kansas City, the team has two more regular season tournaments at the University of Central Missouri and Northeastern State before the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and NCAA Regionals.
At the end of the tournament, the boys played well and hope to improve throughout the season after a difficult year with COVID-19 delaying last year’s season.
“We have a great group of close-knit guys that are always pulling for each other as well,” Turner said.
The team keeps high hopes as they were ranked fifth in the NCAA Central Region Men’s Golf rankings in Feb. 2020.