Palm Desert, CA – The UC Riverside Men's Golf Team earned a 7th-place finish out of 23 teams at the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in Palm Desert this weekend, finishing with 3-over par as a team. Redshirt senior
Brandon Tsujimoto tied for the tenth-best individual score (-6) through 54 holes, finishing strong with a mark of 4-under par on the final day of competition.
TOURNAMENT NOTES
Brandon Tsujimoto charted a top-10 finish for the third time this season with his team-leading score of 210 (71-71-68). That was three strokes better than his previous season-best of 210, set at both the
Bill Cullum Invitational back in October and
The Farms Invitational last week.
The Highlanders' 7th-place team finish was its third-highest placing of the year. UC Riverside also finished 12 spots higher than it did in 2017, when it placed 19th out of 22 teams.
Tsujimoto had the third-best score among 135 golfers on Par 3 (-3). The Highlanders ended the weekend as the second-best team on Par 3 with a score of -3, behind only California (-7).
Junior
Andrew Spilman had the Highlanders' second-best individual score of the weekend, finishing tied for 15th with a mark of 212 (73-68-71). It was the first time this season that he finished in the top-two of his own team. Spilman led UC Riverside on Par 4 with a score of -2.
Included among the talented list of competing teams were six top-40 ranked programs. No. 19 Cal took first place with a score of -47, while No. 9 Texas Tech ended up in second place at -27. The Highlanders finished better than No. 26 Tennessee (+16, 12th-place) and fellow Big West program Cal State Fullerton (+37, 22nd-place)
As a team, UCR had 177 pars, tying with Stephen F. Austin State for second-most in the tournament. Only Colorado (180) — which finished in third — had more total pars.
UC Riverside will next return to action on Mar. 16-17, when it travels to Phoenix, AZ for the Grand Canyon Intercollegiate.
