March 25, 2008

THIS WEEK IN MEN'S GOLF
The Saint Mary's golf team will compete in its third tournament of the spring, when the Gaels travel to Santa Cruz, CA to compete in the 62nd Western Intercollegiate on Wednesday and Thursday, March 26-27. The tournament will be played at the Pasatiempo Golf Course and is hosted by San Jose State University. The Pasatiempo Golf Course is an 18-hole, par-70 championship golf course that measures 6,500 yards with a rating of 72.3 and a slope of 140.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT
The 54-hole medal play tournament will be played over two days with an overall team and an individual champion awarded. Teams will play 36 holes on Wednesday and the final 18 holes will be played on Thursday. Play will begin at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday with a shotgun start and Thursday's rounds will begin at 7:45 a.m. off the first and 10th tees.

62ND ANNUAL WESTERN INTERCOLLEGIATE FIELD
The tournament will have a field of 16 schools and will feature 80 players from seven different conferences. Saint Mary's and Santa Clara are the only two schools in the tournament from the West Coast Conference. The tournament field also includes California, Colorado, Columbia, Fresno State, Hawaii, Long Beach State, Michigan State, Missouri, Nevada, Northwestern, San Jose State, Texas Tech, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara. In the 16-team field, 11 teams are ranked in the top-100 in the country, and Texas Tech (#23) and Michigan State (#25) are ranked in the top-30 nationally. Saint Mary's is currently ranked 50th by Golfstat.

WHO'S PLAYING FOR THE GAELS
Saint Mary's will play with the same line-up that played in every tournament during the 2007-087 season. The five players that will compete are seniors Chadd Cocco, Mike McRae, and Josh Kelley, and sophomores Robert McRae and Daniel Cone.

A Look At The Gaels
Following his second place finish at the 2008 Pinehurst Intercollegiate, Mike McRae leads the team with a 71.4 stroke average and has three top-10 finishes in seven events this year. McRae and Josh Kelley are tied for the team lead with three top-10s, as Kelley is second on the team with a 72.2 stroke average in 21 rounds. Both Chadd Cocco and Robert McRae have a 72.4 stroke average and Daniel Cone is fifth on the squad with a 73.0 stroke average.

SMC'S LAST APPEARANCE AT THE WESTERN INTERCOLLEGIATE
In 2007 at the 61st Annual Western Intercollegiate, Saint Mary's posted a 12th place finish in the 18-team event with a score of 878 (+38). Josh Kelley was the top finisher for SMC, as he posted rounds of 70-69-72-211 (+1) at the par 70 Pasatiempo Golf Course. Daniel Cone (+11) finished tied for 39th, Mike McRae (+16) finished tied for 56th with Robert McRae (+16), and Brett Mormann (+19) posted a 69th place finish in the 95-player field.

RESULTS
Live scoring for the 62nd Annual Western Intercollegiate will be available though golfstat.com, and results will be posted at the end of each day on www.SMCGaels.com and will be available at www.Golfstat.com.

LAST TIME AROUND THE LINKS
The last time SMC took to the links was in March 16-18 when the Gaels competed in the 2008 Pinehurst Intercollegiate from The Centennial Course No. 8, in Pinehurst, NC. SMC posted a ninth place finish overall, and was one shot from a tie for seventh and three shots from sixth place. Mike McRae finished tied for second, with a 54-hole total of 217 (+1), which was one shot off the pace of the medalist Seth Brandon of Indiana. Chadd Cocco, Josh Kelley and Robert McRae all tied for 52nd place with scores of 231 (+15), and Daniel Cone finished tied for 60th overall, one shot behind the SMC trio of Cocco, Kelley and McRae.

THE NEXT EVENT
Following the 62nd Western Intercollegiate, Saint Mary's will travel to Central California to compete in the Stevinson Ranch Invitational hosted by the University of Colorado. The two-day, 54-hole event will be played on Monday and Tuesday, April 7-8 at the par-72, 6,646-yard Stevinson Ranch Golf Course. The course has a rating 72.0 and a slope of 130 from the championship tees.