Miernicki Again Paces UO Golfers in NCAA Finale

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TOLEDO, Ohio ? The No. 31 University of Oregon men's golf team capped its 23rd NCAA Championships appearance with a 22nd-place finish in Thursday's third round of the 112th NCAA Men's Golf Championships held at the Inverness Golf Club.

The Ducks ended with a score of 897 (306-293-298) and hurried to finish the last round of stroke play qualifying as darkness set in on the course just before 9 p.m. Eastern Time. UO had arrived at the course more than 14 hours earlier for a 6:45 a.m. morning start that closed Wednesday's second round that was initially delayed by thunderstorms, then came back to start the third round at 4 p.m. Thursday.

“(Overall) We competed hard, but didn't play as well as I had hoped,” Oregon head coach Casey Martin said, “but this is a championship course, and you have to be ready to challenge on every hole. Today we played the front nine pretty well but struggled on the back nine. We didn't finish as high as we would have liked but that gives us motivation for next year, and we did finish ahead of several storied programs.”

On the par 71, 7,255-yard course, freshman Daniel Miernicki led UO for the third straight round with his two-over 73 to unofficially tie for 37th overall (75-71-73-219) in the156-player field.

The Santee, Calif., native enjoyed three birdies on the day on the par-5 eighth, par-4 10th and par-5 13th holes, parred 10 holes (#1, 2, 5-7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16) and bogeyed the remaining five holes (#3, 4, 14, 17-18).

“(With the darkness) It was an interesting end to a great tournament,” Miernicki said. “It felt like we were running the last four holes to try and squeeze them in, but that also probably helped distract me a little from being nervous. It's an amazing course to play with a lot of tough holes, including a ring of five holes to end the back nine, while holes 3-9 on the front nine were really tough.”

Miernicki capped an impressive run to end the season that included a third-place tie in the Pac-10 Championships (283), and seventh-place tie in the NCAA West Regional (209) to help UO to runner-up team finishes in both events.

“It's been a great season and I'm definitely happy that the team finished the season strong to validate all its hard work,” Miernicki said. “I would have liked to finish top 20 overall here, but there are still some things I can work on this summer, especially my putting.”

Freshman Eugene Wong followed in a tie for 90th place (75-72-78-225), and other Duck entries included freshman Andrew Vijarro (108th-t, 78-75-74-227), sophomore Isaiah Telles (115th-t, 80-75-73-228) and freshman Robbie Ziegler (142nd, 78-77-78-233).

For comparison's sake, UO stood 25th overall after Tuesday's first round with its 22-over score of 306, and held the same position after the second round was completed Thursday morning with a 31-over score (599). Among the Duck leaders each round, Miernicki and Wong were tied for 56th with their 4-over 75 after Tuesday's first round, and climbed into ties for 38th (75-71-146) and 44th (75-72-147) after the second round, respectively.

On the team leaderboard Wednesday, No. 2 Oklahoma State held onto the lead (288-280-284-849) for a 13-stroke advantage over No. 13 Arizona State (second, 294-281-287-862).

No. 3 USC followed in a three-way tie for third place (305-281-279-865) with No. 10 Arkansas (297-283-285-865) and No. 4 Washington (293-286-686-865). Other teams in the top eight included No. 39 Michigan (sixth, 296-285-287-868), No. 15 Texas A&M (seventh-tie, 298-276-295-869) and No. 1 Georgia (seventh-tie, 288-285-296-869).

Only six of the 30 teams on hand need to finish the third round Friday morning ? with all of them between 20th-30th places and out of contention scoring-wise for the initial eight-team match play round later Friday.

Other Pac-10 teams on hand in the tourney included No. 6 Stanford who was at three-over and 20th in the overall standings with four holes left to play, No. 14 UCLA (24th-t, 306-295-299-900) and No. 28 Arizona who ranked 29th with five holes remaining.

In the overall individual standings, N.C. State's Matt Hill will likely be crowned the overall champion Friday morning when all the individual results are compiled officially. The Wolfpack player improved a position the final round and finished with 6-under score of 207 (69-69-69). Clemson's Kyle Stanley followed two strokes back (second, 72-71-66-209), and three others followed in a tie at 210.

Looking ahead, after the top eight teams duel in a pair of match play rounds Friday, the top two remaining teams will play Saturday for the team title.

UO notched its best NCAA team finish since '03 when it placed 22nd, and closed its first back-to-back appearances since 1998-99, Since UO's first NCAA trip in 1947, the Ducks have posted three top-10 finishes in 1956 (fourth), 1977 (seventh) and ?76 (10th).

Only one of UO's entries this week had played in prior NCAA Championships ? sophomore Isaiah Telles who had tied for 134th overall last year (241) and had ranked fourth on the squad.

More information on the NCAA Championships is available at the www.NCAAsports.com and host www.UTrockets.com websites.

Hole-by-hole results for each round are located at the www.GolfStat.com website at the http://www.golfstatresults.com/public/leaderboards/team/static/team_players_1495.html URL address.

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