The UNF golf team sat in 11th place after the first two rounds at the Gary Koch Intercollegiate in Tampa, but rallied on the last day to finish in fifth.
“This was a real good field, so it showed we can compete against some very good schools,” Head Coach Scott Schroeder said.
Finishing with a three-round 10-under 854, the Ospreys missed second place by four strokes. The 15 teams that attended the tournament, co-hosted by Auburn and Kentucky, played at the par-72 and 7,389 yard Old Memorial Golf Club.
“Today we played real solid. It completed a good comeback after the poor first round,” Schroeder said. “A fifth-place finish, after the first round we had, is a nice finish.”
During the last day of golf, tournament champion Florida State shot a 280, which was a better final round than the Ospreys. UNF’s score totaled to 283, leaving them just two strokes behind Florida and Virginia and four behind the second place-ranked Texas Tech.
Sophomore Sean Dale, who entered the tournament as the No. 1-ranked golfer in the country by Golfweek/Sagarin, fired a 3-under 69 on Sunday to finish with a tie for 24 and an average shot of 215. After the tournament Dale slipped down to 15th in the Sagarin rankings while UNF dropped from 11th to 14th.
Throughout the second day of the tournament, UNF’s golf team as a whole didn’t do as well as they would have hoped, but individually junior Chris Kennedy led the Ospreys with a 5-under 139 on day two and tied for 13th. Kennedy finished highest overall for UNF coming in ninth with a 6-under 210 (70-69-71). As a result, Kennedy moved up to 50th in the Sagarin rankings.
Senior J.C. Horne was right behind him with a 4-under 140, which tied him for 18th. In addition, freshman Kevin Phelan ended the day with a 217 and sophomore Kevin Alywin at 228.
The Ospreys tied for 12th after the first round on Saturday morning, but the team shot the sixth-best second round on Saturday afternoon to move into a tie for 11th. It also allowed them to move within striking distance of the leaders heading into Sunday’s final round.
UNF will finish off the fall season at the Brickyard Collegiate Championship from Oct. 10 to Oct. 12 in Macon, Ga. and the David Toms Intercollegiate from Oct. 26 to Oct. 27 in Baton Rouge.
