By Nick Konotopskyj
Sports Assignment Editor
In their only home tournament on the season, the Bonnies golf team was able to show off in front of the home faithful.
The team finished in fourth place out of 10 schools in the Leo Keenan Invitational, which was held at the Bartlett Country Club.
The Bonnies were in contention for the entire tournament, finishing only nine strokes off the pace of the champions from Drexel University. Last year’s champions, Robert Morris University, finished in third overall, only four shots ahead of St. Bonaventure.
Josh Stauffer led the team with a score of 138 over the two days (71, 67). He was pleased with his performance and is looking forward to the team’s upcoming tournaments, he said.
“I finally played like I should be playing as a senior,” Stauffer said. “I can take some confidence from this tournament, showing that when I play well, I will have a chance to win. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing and grind it out.”
Stauffer finished second overall in the field last weekend and was one of two players to finish the tournament under par (140).
The rest of the Bonnies scorers were as follows: Brent Morgan tied for 12th (147), Corey Long tied for 20th (149), Matt Abendroth tied for 41st (154) and Patrick Milkovich 53rd (161). Milkovich, who rounded out the Bonnies’ scoring, learned a lot about his team from this invitational, he said.
“We were in the hunt and in good position to win after the first day, which is great because you need to put yourself in contention at tournaments,” Milkovich said. “I learned that mentally I need to be focused more throughout the entire round and work more on staying in the right positions to score. I put myself in bad spots a couple of times where it was impossible to get a good score.”
Stauffer said he believes it was the second day of the tournament where the team fell a little off pace.
“We didn’t play great as a team the second day,” Stauffer said. “We need to get a little better to get on top by the end of the year.”
According to Milkovich, the team needs to get better at shooting lower scores in the latter rounds of tournaments.
“The second day, we played bad and bounced back a couple spots which has been happening in the past, so we need to figure out how to finish a tournament,” Milkovich said.
Next up for the team is the Little Three Championship at Niagara Falls Country Club on Sept. 30. The Bonnies are looking to get revenge against Canisius, who took the title last year. The Golden Griffins won the title by five strokes overall.
Unlike these past two invitationals, the Little Three tournament only takes the top four scores from each team, not five. However, Coach Erik Hoops is allowed to take up to six players next Wednesday
