Arkansas Tech finished its third trip to the national championships in the same round as last year, but head men's golf coach Luke Calcatera is not hanging his head.
"We didn't have a great day," he said. "We weren't quite at our best, but that's golf. Only one team is going to leave the tournament happy."
The No. 25 Wonder Boys finished stroke play in sixth place, and they took on No. 3 West Florida in Thursday's quarterfinal round of match play. West Florida took all three matches by a combined 18 strokes.
Junior Shawn Tsai and redshirt junior Austin Gean lost their respective matches by two strokes each to lead the team.
Calcatera is disappointed that his team did not make it further, but his outlook is on both the future and the overall picture.
"They are all returners [next year]," he said of this year's team. "And we're adding Connor Gaunt from Cabot. He was the ASGA [Arkansas State Golf Association] Player of the Year the past two years.
"Shawn and Gean are good leaders. The twins played all spring. ... They love the game and had a good freshman year. They will help us next year."
Calcatera said that Arkansas Tech is one of just five teams that reached the semifinals in each of the past three seasons, joining No. 1 Barry, No. 2 Lynn, No. 3 West Florida and No. 4 Florida Southern.
"We are one of five schools that have been in match play the last three years," he said. "Four of them are from Florida."
Two years ago, the Wonder Boys reached the semifinals, but they fell in the quarterfinals last year.
"Last year, Gean was fifth after stroke play, and then he got food poisoning," he explained. "We halved our matches with Lynn, and the tiebreaker is five scores, and we only had four. We lost on the tiebreaker.
"We're knocking on the door. The more we are here, the more comfortable they will be."
The two teams took to the course Thursday morning, starting on Hole 10. The Wonder Boys led by one stroke each in three of five pairings with a tie and one behind.
Freshman Francois Jacobs did not drop behind partner No. 84 Carlos Marrero until the seventh hole, dropping his match by three strokes. Twin No. 130 Andre Jacobs fell behind early, but he regained the lead on the 13th before trailing on the back nine to fall to Juan de Giacomi by three strokes.
Tsai and No. 48 Harry Butler battled from the start with Tsai leading early with them sitting tied on 11 holes before Butler took a stroke on the final two holes for the win. Gean led No. 90 Jacob Huizinga on six of the back nine before Huizinga took the lead on the second and held on for the match.
Redshirt sophomore Kellen Gray dropped two strokes on No. 10 before going six strokes over partner Christian Bosso on No. 12, and he could never get within six strokes as Bosso won by eight.
"West Florida is number three in the country," Calcatera said. "They've got older players and returning guys with more experience in match play. We just couldn't get our scores down."
Calcatera said that the level of difficulty of the course threw his players off some throughout the tournament.
"Looking at the stat sheet, we led on par-4s," he said. "We were at the top in par-3s, but we struggled with par-5s all week."
Sports on 05/24/2019