It was a beautiful morning in the Land of Enchantment as the Lobos kicked off the Men’s Regional Golf Championship. UNM came into the tournament as the seventh overall seed and looked to use their home course as an advantage over their opponents in the first round.
Andre Garcia was the first Lobo to tee off at around 9 a.m. He was then followed by Sean Carlon, Sam Kim, Andrej Bevins, and Gustavo Morantes.
USC jumped out to a quick lead over the field and had a 5 stroke lead over the Lobos before Garcia teed off. But this lead was short lived, just like every other team that held a lead today.
Early on, the Lobos were birdie machines. Carlon had one on hole three, and Kim and Bevins both had one on the first hole. Following these birdies, USC dropped three strokes and the Lobos were tied for first place early on.
The Lobos were fairly inconstant after their hot start. They wouldn’t have a streak of birdies until the end of the day. They gave up 2 strokes and fell back down to the middle of the pack at -1 through the middle of the first nine-holes.
Cleveland State teed off late into the morning and started off strong. At one point Cleveland State was 6-under and had a five stroke lead over the field, looking to run away with it. But that too didn’t last long. The Vikings ended up finishing the day at +24 and 26 shots behind the leader.
As the Lobos teed off on the back-nine, they were tied for first with Texas A&M at 1-under par. This marked the second time that the Lobos had a share of the lead. As the wind started to pick up, the Lobos’ play started to die down.
Bevins had a double-bogey on 10 and dropped the Lobos to 1-over-par and lost their share of the lead, which they would never get back.
UNM had a total of 4 double-bogeys on the back-nine.
Toward the end of the disastrous afternoon, the Lobos looked like they might have had a comeback in them. There was a stretch when Kim had 3 straight birdies and Bevins had 2 straight, bringing the overall team score to a +3 and only five shots out of first place. But two players couldn’t bail them out of this one and they never were able to catch ASU.
Garcia had a rough day finishing 10-over-par and shot one of the worst overall scores out of anyone in the tournament. Below is a list of how the other Lobos scored:
Garica: +10
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Morantes: +4
Kim: +1
Carlon: +1
Bevins: E
The Lobos ended up finishing the round at 6 over-par and 8 strokes out of first place. Here is a look at how the rest of the field did:
1) ASU: -2
2) South Florida: +1
T3) Texas Tech: +3
T3) USC: +3
5) TCU: +4
6) San Diego State: +5
7) New Mexico: +6
8) Texas A&M: +8
9) Liberty: +9
10) Iowa: +14
11) Army West Point: +15
12) North Carolina State: +17
13) Cleveland State: +24
14) Wagner College: +28
Round 2 is set to tee off early Tuesday morning.
Nathaniel Taglialegami is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
