The University of Rhode Island men’s golf team climbed up the leaderboard on the final day of the tournament to bring home a fourth-place finish at the Moraine Intercollegiate this week.

With two wins under their belts already this year, the Rams traveled to Kettering, Ohio, on Monday to compete against a 14-team field that included multiple schools from Power Four conferences.

URI was one of just four teams to shoot under par in each of the three rounds during the event, finishing at 11-under, which was its best score at any tournament so far this season. The Rams were within three strokes of the lead at points during each of the final two rounds. However, they ultimately finished nine shots behind the winners of the tournament, Xavier University.

“It’s a great luxury to be able to say that we didn’t just hang with [the rest of the field]; we battled them tooth and nail,” URI Head Coach Gregg Burke said. “We really could’ve won this tournament very easily. We played well enough to win; we did not play well down the stretch in the past two rounds, and that cost us.”

In the opening round of the event on Monday, four of the five members of the Rams shot under par to give the team a score of five-under, which put them in a tie for fourth place along with No. 8 University of Illinois.

Second-year Luke Stennett, who has two individual wins this season, led the charge for the Rams in round one with a score of two-under. After dropping to two-over through his first five holes, Stennett caught fire with six birdies in his next nine holes to catapult all the way to four-under. Despite a couple of bogeys down the stretch, he still sat inside the top 10 following the round.

The Rams also got opening rounds of one-under from third-years Tony Liu and Josiah Tong, along with second-year Tyler Burneau, who all played steady with 11 or more pars made.

For the second consecutive round, Rhody shot five-under as a team on Monday afternoon to move to 10-under overall. The Rams jumped all the way to second place and three shots off the lead about halfway through the second round. However, the five players combined to shoot eight-over on their last seven holes to drop down to seventh place and 11 shots back of the lead heading to the final day.

In the final round on Tuesday, URI once again found itself just three shots back of the three-way tie at the top between Xavier, Illinois and the University of Missouri after nine holes. Although the Rams dropped a few shots late in the day, they still secured a third consecutive under-par round with a score of one-under to finish in fourth place.

Stennett made just two bogeys on Tuesday on his way to shooting one-under for an overall score of five-under, which was tied for 11th place on the individual leaderboard. After making three bogeys and a double bogey in his first round, Stennett made only four bogeys across the rest of the tournament.

“What [Stennett] is doing well right now is that he’s making pars when he needs them when he’s not in a good position,” Burke said. “I think what’s going to make him a PGA [player] one day is when he doesn’t get upset that he’s not making birdie every time.”

Liu had the best round on the team during the final round on Tuesday, shooting two-under for the second consecutive round to finish tied for 11th along with Stennett. Liu shot a combined 24-over in his first two tournaments of the season, but he has now finished under par with a top-two score on the team in back-to-back events.

“This summer, I was very communicative with [Liu] and I told him ‘We’re only as good as Tony Liu,’” Burke said. “I’ve told him 100 times that he has to believe in himself because I believe in him… He’s just scratching the surface.”

The Rams will get five days of rest before participating in the Nassau Intercollegiate in Glen Cove, New York. After a strong showing in Ohio, Burke is making sure that his team remains motivated to keep building off this performance.

“If you look at the level of teams [this week] nationally, there’s not a lot of teams like URI that play that kind of schedule, and we did extremely well,” Burke said. “We’ll have a lot of fun talking about how great this tournament was at the end of the year, but right now we’re going to focus on Nassau.”

URI will look to bring home its third win of the season at the Nassau Intercollegiate, which will take place on Monday and Tuesday.

The post Golf finishes fourth against strong competition in Ohio first appeared on The Good 5¢ Cigar.