Ohio showed signs of life for its spring season after finishing its Fall 2013 campaign with a sixth-place finish at the Cobra Puma Invitational in Ft. Myers, Fla., on Monday.
Although placing 12th out of 13 teams through two rounds, freshman Peyton White and senior Phil Gieseker fired on all cylinders in their final round to place 10th and 15th overall, respectively.
“We’re getting better each day,” said Ohio coach Bob Cooley. “We played really well [Monday]. The first round was a struggle and the second day was OK, but [Monday] was really good. We had some good overall scores.”
White finished the tournament with a 68-stroke final round and Gieseker obtained his first top-20 finish this season with his final-round 72 on Monday.
The Bobcats shot nine strokes better on Monday than in the team’s previous round. White, Gieseker, junior Andrew Mlynarski, freshman Ty Herriott and senior Bradley Lucas accumulated a third-round score of 289 to scrape by seventh place Arkansas State by one stroke.
Mlynarski placed 38th out of 75 golfers, completing his final round by carding a 77. Herriott steadily improved his play over the course of the tournament, scoring 80-78-73; Lucas finished with a total score of 235.
“When the upperclassmen play well, the rest of the team plays well,” Cooley said. “The first round we didn’t play well, and the second round we did OK. We finally picked it up [Monday].”
Cooley noted he was impressed on how well the two freshmen in the lineup played.
“Peyton has been good over the year and [Herriott] is getting better and better,” Cooley said.
“He’s doing a good job — he just needs to stay focused and keep going.”
The tournament was Ohio’s first-ever at the Miromar Lakes Golf Course, and Cooley said the beautiful weather allowed the golfers to focus more on the game than the conditions.
“It was perfect weather,” Cooley said. “It was about 85 and just really good golf weather. It was windy [Monday], but it was probably warmer than Athens.”
Florida Gulf Coast ran away with its first-place finish after posting a 13-under-par, 855-stroke three-round score. Florida Atlantic placed second, and Bethune-Cookman rounded out the top three with an 869 three-round score.
The tournament is Ohio’s last until February 2014, when it will return to Florida for the Mid-American Match Play in Dade City.
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