Palm Desert, Calif. (Feb. 11, 2023) -- In the final round of the Wyoming Desert Match Play event on Saturday, the No. 4 seed Wyoming Cowboys halved their match with No. 3 seed San Francisco by a score of 3-3-0, but San Francisco won the tiebreaker over Wyoming based on winning more holes during the match. The Cowboys finished fourth in the eight-team field, while San Francisco took third place. The No. 2 seeded San Diego Toreros captured the team championship with a 3-2-1 victory over No. 1 seeded Colorado.
The three Cowboys who won their individual matches on Saturday were: sophomores
Patrick Azevedo, who won 2UP;
Jaren Calkins, who won 1UP; and
Kristof Panke, who won 2&1. Senior
Kirby Coe-Kirkham lost his final round match 7&6.
Cade McLaughlin fell 3&2, and junior
Jimmy Dales lost 2&1.
For the weekend, Azevedo was the lone Cowboy to win all three of his individual matches. Calkins won two matches and tied one. Panke won two matches and lost one. Coe-Kirkham and Dales each won one match and lost two. McLaughlin tied one match and lost two.
"For us to halve the match with San Francisco was good for us. Obviously, we were playing for third and fourth-place and they won third on a tiebreaker but it was a positive to split the individual matches with them," said
Joe Jensen, UW Director of Golf and Head Men's Golf Coach. "San Francisco, San Diego and Colorado are all ranked in the range where they will all likely be in the NCAA Tournament, so this was a good field of competition this week.
"We had a close match with CU yesterday and came back and had another strong match against San Francisco to go with our first round win over Seattle, so I really like the way we started our spring season this weekend. We got a lot of good work in this week, and all of our players have positives to take out of this weekend. Now we'll have a couple weeks off before we come back to Palm Desert for our stroke-play event in March."
The Wyoming Desert Match Play was played on the Classic Club in Palm Desert, Calif. The course measured 7,305 yards.
Wyoming will return to the Classic Club on Wednesday-Friday, March 1-3 when the Cowboys will host the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate.
Final Matches on Saturday, Feb. 11
Championship Match
#2 Seed San Diego defeated #1 Seed Colorado, 3-2-1
Third-Place Match
#3 Seed San Francisco and #4 Seed Wyoming Tied 3-3-0, but San Francisco won third place on a Tiebreaker based on most holes won during the match.
Fifth-Place Match
#5 Seed Seattle defeated #7 Seed Wichita State, 4-1-1
Seventh-Place Match
#8 Seed South Dakota State defeated #6 Seed Boise State, 5-1-0
