May 29, 2009
TOLEDO, Ohio - The Arizona State men's golf team was defeated by Texas A&M 3-1-1 in the quarterfinals of match play at the NCAA Championship held on Friday morning at the par-71, 7,255-yard Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.
The second-seeded Sun Devils' only win came from freshman Scott Pinckney 2 and 1) spots. The No. 4 match between ASU sophomore Jesper Kennegard and Texas A&M's Matt Van Zandt was halted once the Aggies clinched the victory. Both players had won seven holes each when play stopped with the 18th hole remaining.
"We didn't come out and perform the way he had hoped," ASU head coach Randy Lein said. "Knut is usually very good in match play, but he did not have one of his better days today. We figured Stephan would play well because of the kind of week he had and we were right about that. Overall the guys are disappointed because they had set themselves up with a great opportunity to win it all and were not able to do that."
The Sun Devils arrived at Friday's competition after a brilliant 54 holes of golf over the first three days of the tournament that earned them the No. 2 seed in the match play format.
ASU began the NCAA Championships tied for sixth after the first day of play. Kennegard's 1-over 72 paced the Sun Devils during the first 18 holes. The Sun Devils would move up to fourth following Wednesday's second round, which included a four-and-a-half hour rain delay. Pinckney (-4), Kennegard (-2) and Kim (E) helped the Sun Devils get even closer to the top of the leaderboard as the team shot a 3-under 281 for the round. On Thursday it was Kim (-1), Borsheim (E) and Kennegard (+1) who helped the Sun Devils punch their ticket into the match play competition.
At the conclusion of 54 holes the Sun Devils were second in the team competition and had three individuals who finished in the top 25 - Kennegard (E, t-9th), Pinckney (+1, t-13th) and Kim (+3, t-23rd). For Kennegard the ninth-place finish represented his third top-10 finish of the season and it also marked the 16th time that a Sun Devil golfer finished in the top 10 at NCAAs during Lein's tenure at ASU.
"It's really meaningful to see Jesper finish the way he did," Lein said. "He had an outstanding freshman year but this season he didn't really play to expectations until later in the spring. By the end of the season he was playing as well as the top five players in the country. He and Scott [Pinckney] both played a big role in getting us into the Elite Eight."
ASU concludes the 2008-09 season as one of the top 10 teams in the nation for the 10th time in Lein's 17 years leading the program.
"This was a great season because of the way we progressed throughout the year," Lein said. "We were okay in the fall and a little erratic in the spring but we really found our stride in the postseason. We were able to win our regional which we had not done in a number of years and then we came out here and played well enough to be the second best team during the stroke-play portion of the championship. The program has a great future to look forward to given that we have an extremely talented group returning next season."
No. 7 Texas A&M def. No. 2 Arizona State, 3-1-1
No. 5 Conrad Shindler (A&M) def. No. 5 Scott Pinckney (ASU), 2 & 1
No. 4 Jesper Kennegard (ASU) and No. 4 Matt Van Zandt (A&M), All Square thru 17
No. 3 John Hurley (A&M) def. No. 3 Chan Kim (ASU), 3 & 2
No. 2 Stephan Gross (ASU) def. No. 2 Andrea Pavan (A&M), 4 & 3
No. 1 Bronson Burgoon (A&M) def. No. 1 Knut Borsheim (ASU), 5 & 4