The Ball State University men's golf team finished in 11th place out of 17 teams at the University of Kentucky Owens/Brewer Invitational. Shooting a team-combined score of 939, the Cardinals finished 40 strokes behind winner University of Central Florida.
Despite poor weather conditions, coach Mike Fleck said he was disappointed by Ball State's performance.
"It was another struggle," Fleck said. "The weather was a little bit better during the third round, but we just didn't do well. I can tell you that the weather hurt us, but every team faced the same conditions as we did. We just have to be more mentally tough than everyone else. Unfortunately, we didn't take that approach for the entire event. We just didn't play team golf."
Junior Brian Maurer topped all Cardinals by carding a 226. With a team-low score of 70 in the final round, Maurer finished 12th overall out of 94 players.
"Brian had an excellent third round score of 70," Fleck said. "Outside of Brian, however, the rest of the team was off pace."
Excluding Maurer, the Cardinals next best performer was freshman Eric Steger, who tied for 46th.
"We definitely experienced inconsistency again this week," Fleck said. "It is a major concern of mine because now we have to try and find the five best players who will play in the MAC Championships in a few weeks. I don't know if I can do that right now though because I don't know whom the five best players are."
After completing five tournaments in the spring season, Fleck has seen five different players take the No. 1 spot for the Cardinals. Ben Lakoff, Ross Cosat, Eric Steger, Andrew Rhodes, and now Brian Maurer have placed first for the Cardinals in a tournament.
"The bottom line is that we have to get everyone going," Fleck said. "We have had some individual players perform well at times this spring, but we have to get everyone on the same page and be capable to play our best golf in a couple of weeks at the MAC tournament."
Maurer said he was happy to finish 12th.
"I've worked hard on my short game and now I am finally seeing some progress," Maurer said. "Hopefully in a few weeks the entire team will be playing well. We have shown throughout the year that individuals have the ability to play well, but now we have to show that we can at that high level together."
Steger said the team needs to focus on its confidence.
"We don't have a lot of time to practice before the next tournament, but if we are successful next week our confidence will go way up," Steger said. "We just need to play together and once we do that we can be ready for the MAC tournament."
In five days, Ball State will travel to University Park, Pa. for the Penn State Rutherford Intercollegiate.
"If we can all be on the same page I think we will see some real success," Maurer said. "And if we play well together we can compete with anybody."
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