The altitude in Albuquerque, New Mexico, did not faze the WSU men’s golf team this past Friday and Saturday, as they took 11th place in the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate with an overall score of 36-over-par (900).

San Diego State won the tournament after shooting (-1, 863) overall, followed by Colorado State (+9, 873) in second and BYU (+14, 878) in third to round out the top three.

After opening the season with a win in their first tournament, Head Coach Dustin White said he wanted to enter this tournament with a cool head and a clear mind.

“It’s not about going down there thinking ‘just because we won last week we can win again this week.’” White said before the tournament. “Obviously that’s the goal, but in the meantime, we just focus on learning the golf course, hitting one shot at a time, and seeing where that leaves you at the end of three rounds.”

The Cougs did not get the result they were looking for in New Mexico, but seek to learn from their mistakes.

“Anytime you finish the day better than started, that’s a good thing,” White said on wsucougars.com after the tournament. “It would have been great to jump a couple more teams, but we’ll learn from this and be better about it.”

Junior Derek Bayley tied for 22nd place and was the only WSU player to finish in the top-25. In the first round, Bayley had a score of 3-under par (69). During the third round, he shot 4-over par (76) which earned him a total score of 6-over-par (222).

Freshman Nicklaus Chiam placed 34th with a total score of (+9, 225). In the first and second rounds, Chiam shot 3-over-par, which improved Chiam’s ranking from 38th place to his final ranking.

Sophomore AJ Armstrong finished the tournament in a tie for 58th place with an overall score of 3-over-par (229). Armstrong did, however, score an eagle in the first hole in the first round.

Junior Zach Anderson followed Armstrong and placed 64th with 14-over-par (230). In the final round, Anderson scored an eagle, which improved his overall score.

Senior Nick Mandell took 68th place with 15-over par (231). In the final round, Mandell scored four birdies to help him in his final score.

“We had spurts of good things, but we weren’t able to keep them going,” White said on wsucougars.com. “The effort was there, we just didn’t have the result we wanted. I like the energy of the group though. We’ll get back to work in Colorado.”

The WSU men’s golf team will travel to Erie, Colorado, to partake in the Mark Simpson Colorado Invitational at the Colorado National Golf Club Sept. 26-27. Golfstat.com will post live scores and wsucougars.com will have the final results.