Live Stats

The Kent State men’s golf team opens their season in fifth place through two rounds at the Gopher Invitational in Independence, Minn.

The Flashes sat atop the leaderboards for most of the first round of the tournament, finishing the first round at 7-over-par with a total score of 291.

The Flashes are currently 25-over-par overall with a total score of 593. They trail leader Baylor, California, Charlotte and tournament host the University of Minnesota.

The Flashes began to struggle in the second round, shooting 18-over-par with a score of 302 on the day. Kent State head coach Herb Page was extremely disappointed in the Flashes second-round performance. Page had four freshmen in the lineup. He said the guys are young and they’ll get better, but didn’t like how they finished the round.

“We had a terrible finish today,” Page said. “These are young kids and they are going to do better, but I am an extremely competitive guy. It’s just a shame that we played so well and then play[ed] so poorly in the end.  It’s not just one player — we just didn’t finish our round this afternoon.”

At the tough Windsor Farm golf course, freshmen Ian Holt and Chase Johnson started off their first tournament action of the fall season playing great golf.

Holt was one of the standouts on the Par 71 course, posting a score of 69 (-2) in the first round, tying for third with New Mexico’s Joseph Abella, but a 9 on the last hole put him at 5-over, dropping him out of the top five on the leaderboard.

“I played pretty well in the first round,” Holt said. “I hit the ball pretty well.”

In the second round, Holt said he didn’t hit the ball as well, specifically with his tee shots, and said his poor play “costs” him.

Johnson was not too far behind Holt in the first round. He also played fairly well, shooting 70 (-1), which put him at fifth on the leaderboard.

However, much like his freshman teammate, Johnson also struggled in the second round, shooting 7-over-par, putting him at in 22nd place on the leaderboard for the tournament.

Junior Sebastian Bendsen is in 27th place at 8-over-par, freshman J.D. Hughes is in 35th place at 10-over-par and freshman Spencer Dobbs is in 46th place at 13-over-par

The Flashes will wrap up the tournament Monday with tee-off times slated for 7:30 a.m.

Contact Ray Strickland at [email protected].