SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Arizona Men’s Golf capped its opening round of the NCAA Championships with a 6-over par showing on Wednesday morning as Chase Sienkiewicz and Chaz Aurilia led the Wildcats with rounds of 1-under par. The Cats’ 6-over team score tied for the third-lowest round out of the 15 teams who played Grayhawk Golf Club in the morning, and it was good for a tie for fourth place by the end of the day.
“I thought we posted a quality round this morning and stuck to our gameplan,” said head coach Jim Anderson. “Chase and Chaz did a fantastic job of leading us today and giving our team two of the best rounds posted all day. We played steadier and more confident later in the round, which will give us some momentum going into tomorrow’s round. We learned from our weaker holes today and will make key adjustments for more quality scores on Saturday afternoon.”
Aurilia and Sienkiewicz would end the day in a tie for third place following the completion of the afternoon rounds. The junior duo made Arizona the only team in the championships to have multiple players break par on the first day. The round of 69 on Friday was Aurilia’s best of the postseason, including his key rounds in the final two days of the NCAA Bryan Regional. The team’s next best rounds on in Friday’s openers were from the cards of freshman Johnny Walker and sophomore Sam Sommerhauser who both shot 74.
No team in the entire field broke par on Friday as the Wildcats were balanced in the team scoring statistics, ranking in the top 10 of the 30-team field in par-3 scoring, par-4 scoring and par-5 scoring. Arizona is part of a seven-team pack of competitors within four strokes of each other on the leaderboards.
The Wildcats will be a part of the afternoon rounds in Scottsdale on Saturday with tee times beginning at 11:52 a.m. (MST) as they will once again play alongside Kansas and Oregon.
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