Men’s Links Finish Third at GNAC Championship

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho – The Montana State Billings men’s golf team finished the 2009 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championship in third place after firing a third round score of 296 Tuesday.  The Yellowjackets finished the tournament with an 889, 54-hole score, 14 strokes behind Saint Martin’s.  Western Washington won the championship on the final day outshooting SMU by six strokes and edging the Saints, 872 to 875 for the tournament. 

WWU’s Jake Koppenberg won medalist honors after beating SMU’s John Eisentrout in the first hole of a sudden-death playoff.  Eisentrout made up two strokes Tuesday to force the playoff after Koppenberg shot a 74 for the third round.  Both players finished with a 213 score.

MSUB’s Jeff Allen finished fourth, carding a six-over 219.  Allen fired a third round score of 70 which tied for the best score of the round.  Allen shot rounds of 80 and 69, which tied for the best round in the tournament Monday.

Jacob Harr finished eighth for the Yellowjackets (76 – 72 – 75 = 223), followed by Jeff Dalton at ninth (75 – 74 – 75 = 224) to round out three MSUB players in the top 10.  Travis Gates finished tied for 11th (77 – 72 – 77 = 226) and Mike Watson was tied for 15th ( 78 – 75 – 76 = 229). 

Northwest Nazarene finished fourth as a team, 34 strokes behind MSUB.  Both NNU and MSUB were tied after the first round with 306 scores.  MSUB then tallied the low-round of the tournament (equaled by WWU Tuesday) in the second round to move within eight strokes of second place after two rounds.

The 2009 all-conference and academic all-conference teams are scheduled to be released Wednesday.

Complete Results

1 Western Washington U 289 296 287 872
** 1 Jake Koppenberg 69 70 74 213
3 Brandon Brown 73 71 71 215
T 5 Jake Webb 72 76 72 220
14 Julian Peters 77 81 70 228
T 15 Thomas Jun 75 79 75 229

2 St. Martin's Univ. 290 292 293 875
2 John Eisentrout 70 71 72 213
T 5 Justin Lanman 70 75 75 220
T 5 Zach Dietz 75 71 74 220
10 Sheldon Prante 75 75 75 225
17 Olof Rosborg 78 80 72 230

3 Montana St. Billings 306 287 296 889
4 Jeff Allen 80 69 70 219
8 Jacob Harr 76 72 75 223
9 Jeff Dalton 75 74 75 224
T 11 Travis Gates 77 72 77 226
T 15 Mike Watson 78 75 76 229

4 Northwest Nazarene 306 315 302 923
T 11 Rowdy Hope 73 75 78 226
T 11 Zach Grunig 74 77 75 226
18 Aaron VandeHey 80 82 72 234
19 Jeff McDonald 79 82 77 238
20 Leon Vasquez 82 81 95 258

** Won sudden-death playoff