Men's Golf Wins Ninth Straight NCAC Tournament

MANSFIELD, Ohio—For the ninth consecutive year, the Wittenberg men's golf program claimed the NCAC Tournament Crown. As a team, the Tigers put together a 54-hole score of 898. The Tigers finished +34 as a team, one stroke ahead of Ohio Wesleyan. The Tigers and Battling Bishops were tied at +34 with one hole to play, as OWU missed a putt on the final hole to fall back a stroke, giving the Tigers the NCAC Tournament Crown.

Wittenberg was led by junior Colin Laszlo who finished in third place in the three-round tournament with a three-day score of 221 (+5). Laszlo fired rounds of 73-70-78 to finish in third, as Ryan Mallette finished right behind Laszlo in fifth. Mallette carded rounds of 74-73-77 to finish +8. Christopher Dunne also claimed a top-ten finish for the champion Tigers, finishing +10 with a 73 in the final round of play. Cooper Taylor finished just outside the top-ten for Wittenberg at the championship, finishing T11 with a three-day score of 229 (+13). Taylor's low rounds came on Friday and Saturday, carding back-to-back 76's.

As a team Wittenberg finished ahead of the pack with a 4.27 scoring average on the weekend's par four's, as well as a 4.89 scoring average on Westbrook Country Club's par five's. As a team, the Tigers lead the field with 163 total pars, with Kenyon college ranked second with 156. Wittenberg and OWU tied with 31 total birdies on the tournament. Laszlo paced the Tiger's with nine birdies on the weekend, while Taylor recorded 36 pars.

Wittenberg now awaits the 2018 NCAA Championships at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro, North Carolina. The tournament is set for May 15-18 at the Grandover Resourt Course, a track that the Tigers competed at earier in the month in the 2018 Division III Match Play Invitational.

The Wittenberg Tigers, who entered the championship ranked 17th in the GolfStat Top-25, will once again brought a stacked lineup to the 2018 NCAC Championships, as the team has combined to win four total tournaments between the fall and spring seasons. The Tigers earned a pair of their wins in the fall season at the Allegheny Fall Invitational in early September and at the 36-hole championship preview event at Westbrook C.C. in mid-October. Wittenberg than earned the top prize in late March at the Wynlakes Intercollegiate in Montgomery, Alabama, before closing out the regular season with a win last weekend at OWU's Strimer Memorial Invitational. Two of the Tigers' top golfers hail from the junior class, including Isaac Hartley and Colin Laszlo while 2017 NCAC Newcomer of the Year, sophomore Cameron Willis has also been a mainstay in the lineup this year. Hartley is the only Tiger with an individual win this season after picking up medalist honors last weekend at OWU's Strimer Memorial Invitational with a 36-hole score of 142 (71-71).