Patrick Leads Men’s Golfers at Mustang Intercollegiate

Scott Kretzmann
ASC Sports
Information Director

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— True freshman Scott Patrick (Canon City, Colo.) again led the Grizzly men’s golf team, which posted back-to-back identical team scores of 346 in difficult weather conditions at the Mustang Intercollegiate, which got underway Monday here at the University of New Mexico Championship Golf Course.
Patrick, who led the Grizzlies in both of their rounds at last week’s Tucson Invitational Games, posted a 77 in the morning round, just one shot off his career-best, and then followed that up with an 83 in the afternoon. He stands in a 3-way tie for 16th place with a 36-hole total of 160.
Patrick made four of the Grizzlies’ six total birdies throughout the day and is also amongst the tournament leaders in both par-3 and par-5 scoring playing the specialty holes in 3-over and 1-under par respectively on the 7,324-yard, par-72 course.
Meanwhile, Grizzly junior Andrew Kennedy (Casper, Wyo.) recorded scores of 86 and 88 and is a 32nd place tie at 174. San Luis Valley natives Jonathan Atencio (Alamosa, Colo.) and Ben Kelloff (Monte Vista, Colo.) are tied with each other for 36th at 180 while senior Josh Hensley (Alamosa, Colo.) is 39th at 184 after back-to-back 92’s. Atencio had scores of 91 and 89 while Kelloff bounced back from a morning 94 to card an afternoon 86.
The University of New Mexico’s “B” Team took advantage of local knowledge and leads the 8-team field after 36 holes with a team score of 614, good for a 7-shot advantage over Colorado Mesa (621) and a 9-stroke lead over the host Western New Mexico Mustangs (623). New Mexico and Colorado Mesa each posted morning round scores of 308 before the NCAA Division I Lobos bested the field with a 306 in the afternoon to build their cushion.
The top three teams also hold down each of the top five spots individually as Colorado Mesa’s Brandon Bingaman carded scores of 72 and 75 to hold a 1-shot lead over New Mexico’s Sam Saunders, who carded an afternoon best of 72 to claw back after a morning 76. New Mexico’s Alex Estrada is in third, two shots further back, at 150 after back-to-back 75’s.
Nobody in the 39-player field was able to break par on Monday and Bingaman and Saunders were the only players to post an even par single-round score on a day that saw the field average 81.36 and 81.67 strokes in the first and second rounds, respectively.
Tuesday’s third and final round will begin at 8:30 a.m.