WVU played amongst top golf competition Saturday and Sunday as they traveled to Loxley to play in the University of South Alabama’s Steelwood Invitational.
The 82nd ranked men’s golf team in the country sent six golfers to Steelwood Country Club for the 54-hole event. This included seniors Oli Ménard and Will Stakel, juniors Max Green and Pierce Grieve, and sophomores Kaleb Wilson and Carson Kammann.
After two rounds on Saturday, the team tied for 10th out of 14 teams with No. 76 UAB. Kammann, who registered as an individual, placed fifth after the first day of competition, but WVU’s top contributors for their team score were Stakel and Grieve tied at 32nd.
Kamman came in at three-under-par after the first two rounds, setting the pace for his best tournament performance as a Mountaineer. The sophomore transferred to West Virginia after playing his freshman season at East Tennessee State.
The Mountaineers matched their second round score on Sunday, as Max Green led the team with a three-under-par round, but other schools shined in the third round of play to drop West Virginia to 12th in the standings.
The golfers finished +26 for the three rounds combined, and their splits were pretty even in each (298-296-296=890). No. 12 Alabama placed first with an 11-under-par performance (284-284-285=853) while No. 21 Chattanooga finished eight strokes behind to place second (287-287-287=861).
Individually, Kammann finished the tournament tied for 16th, as he dropped a bit in the third round with a 76 (+4) to finish one-over-par for the weekend. Green came in as the second ranked Mountaineer after scoring a 79 (+7) in the first round before recovering to tie at 31st place (79-72-69=220, +4).
Stakel scored two-over-par in each round on Saturday and four-over-par in Sunday’s round to tie with Ménard (74-76-74=224, +8) at 42nd place. Pierce Grieve matched Stakel on Saturday but had one more stroke on Sunday to finish nine-over-par for the weekend and tied for 45th place while Kaleb Wilson finished 10 strokes over that to tie for 71st.
The Steelwood Invitational was the final outing of WVU’s fall golf season. West Virginia finished with one invitational win, a 3-2 match play record, and had Max Green place first at the Red Bandanna Invitational and Oli Ménard place second at the Xavier Invitational.
WVU Golf will return January 29th for The N.I.T. in Tucson, Arizona.
