TUCSON, Ariz. - The Saint Mary's men's golf team concluded their three-round event at the National Invitational Tournament hosted by the University of Arizona in seventh place at 18-under-par. The Gaels recorded their low round of the tournament at 9-under in the second round on Monday, but fell four spots after finishing just 3-under in Tuesday's final round.
The 14-team field featured three teams ranked inside the top-45 and also included fellow WCC schools in LMU and Santa Clara. Saint Mary's recorded their third top-ten finish at the NIT dating back to 2019 and their best finish in the event since 2020 when they placed seventh out of 14 competing schools.
Perfect weather, little wind and smooth greens made for great scoring conditions at Omni Tucson National Resort. After a respectable 6-under-par opening round Saint Mary's propelled themselves into fourth place with a 9-under second round led by first year transfer
Ian Bruchhauser. Bruchhauser was 3-under with seven birdies while
Zack Missigman,
Aidan Lee and
Connor Reis all finished 2-under-par as the three other counting scores.
Saint Mary's was within striking distance of third place entering the final round but double bogeys plagued the Gaels as they recorded a tournament high three doubles on Tuesday.
Avery Lazarski and
Zack Missigman put together two of the best individual rounds of the week for Saint Mary's, combining to shoot 9-under-par. Lazarski led the final day with a clean card, recording five birdies while Missigman recorded a team high eight birdies to battle his way to a 68 (-4).
Utah transfer
Go Nakatsukasa competed as the team's lone individual and made a nice push on the final day with a 69 (-3). Nakatsukasa jumped eleven spots on the individual leaderboard to finish t-38th and recorded back-to-back rounds under par to conclude the week. Full tournament results can be found
HERE.
LOOKING AHEAD
Saint Mary's will head to Hawaii to compete in the John Burns Intercollegiate next Thursday, February 13th. Full tournament information and live scoring links can be found at smcgaels.com.
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