May 2, 2013
SDSU Men's Golf Notes | MW Men's Golf Championships Page | Live Results
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State men's golf team will be aiming for its third consecutive conference title this week when it travels to the desert for the Mountain West Championships, May 3-5, in Tucson, Ariz. For the seventh straight season, the 54-hole event will be contested on the par-71, 7,144-yard Catalina Course at the OMNI Tucson National Golf Club.
The nine-team field will play 18 holes on each of the three days, following a practice round on Thursday. The Aztecs, who have been idle since April 14, received the No. 3 seed are slated to tee off with No. 1 New Mexico and No. 2 UNLV in the first group on Friday, starting at 7 a.m. PT, while the pairings for the final two rounds with be based on team standings. A live scoring link will be available courtesy of Golfstat on GoAztecs.com.
SDSU will be returning to the Catalina Course for the second time this season after logging an eighth-place finish at the Don Puckette National Invitational Tournament, March 16-17.
For the fifth time this season, San Diego State head coach Ryan Donovan will employ the starting lineup of senior Tom Berry (New Haw, Surrey, England), sophomore Xander Schauffele (San Diego, Calif.), freshman Riccardo Michelini (Carpi, Italy) and juniors James Holley (Chatsworth, Calif.) and Austin Kaiser (Atascadero, Calif.). The combination was last utilized at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational and also comprised five-sixths of the SDSU delegation at the Western Intercollegiate.
Berry is lone Aztec with MW championship experience among the group, tying for fifth out of 40 golfers at last year's tournament, while Schauffele competed in the Big West conference championships in 2012 as a freshman at Long Beach State, finishing in a tie for 20th in a 45-man field. Meanwhile, the three remaining SDSU players, Michelini, Holley and Kaiser are set to make their conference debuts.
Four of SDSU's opponents this week find themselves among the top 100 in the latest Golfstat rankings released May 1. New Mexico is the highest rated team, checking in at No. 6, followed by UNLV (34th), Fresno State (81st) and Colorado State (83rd). The Aztecs, who landed in the 52nd position, will also square off against Air Force (118th), Nevada (125th), Wyoming (174th) and Boise State (178th). TCU, which captured three tournament titles in 2007, 2011 and 2012, dropped out of the MW to join the Big 12 Conference last summer.
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