The men's golf team finished in the middle of the pack in its first fall tournament.
Ball State University finished fifth out of nine teams at the Hawkeye Intercollegiate tournament on Sunday.
Head coach Mike Fleck said he was disappointed with the results in a field that included such schools as St. Ambrose University, North Dakota State and South Dakota State University.
"We didn't come out ready to play and weren't as sharp as I thought we would be," Fleck said. "In this field, fifth place is disappointing. But we will learn from what we did and try to improve."
The Cardinals finished with an 888 total (294-295-299). Western Illinois University won the tournament with an 845 score, while host Iowa finished second (864).
Junior C.D. Hockersmith was the low Cardinal golfer, finishing tied for 14th. Hockersmith carded rounds of 71-73-75 for a 219 total.
Wayne Denger finished a stroke back of Hockersmith to tie for 16th. Andy Skillman tied for 25th (224), Patrick Wilkes-Krier tied for 28th (228) and freshman Ben Lakoff tied for 41st (234).
"Patrick and C.D. probably could have put up lower scores than what they did," Fleck said. "I thought Wayne and Andy did a nice job filling in the three and four spots."
Fleck said the main problem was his players losing strokes around the greens.
"A lot of it falls back to the short game," he said. "We weren't as good around the greens as we should have been."
Another area of concern for Fleck was how the Cardinal golfers played the par fours.
"We didn't manage the par fours well," Fleck said. "We didn't execute properly on those holes as we did on the Par threes and Par fives."
The Cardinals will play next in two weeks at the Wolverine Invitational in Ann Arbor, Mich, Fleck said the team will use the time to compete in practice.
"We're going to be competitive with our intra-squad qualifiers," he said.
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