UTEP Men's Golf Set to Defend Conference Title

EL PASO, Texas – The UTEP men's golf team is set to defend its title at the 2018 Conference USA Men's Golf Championship, April 22-25 at the Texarkana Country Club (par 72, 6,969-yard course) in Texarkana, AR. The Miners will begin their defense against 12 other league teams on Sunday with the first round of stroke play, and continuing Monday and Tuesday with 18 holes played each day starting at 8 a.m. CT. Following the results of stroke play, the top four teams will advance to a seeded match play round on Wednesday, April 25, with the team champion earning C-USA's automatic berth to the NCAA Regionals.

Tee time pairings are based off the latest Golfstat national rankings, and No. 87 UTEP will begin to tee off at 9:20 a.m. CT alongside No. 85 UAB and No. 101 Charlotte. North Texas, ranked No. 62, and No. 73 Middle Tennessee,the top-two highest ranked teams in the league, will begin the tournament at 8 a.m. CT.

"I think our main goal is to win the conference championship again," head coach Scott Lieberwirth said. "As far as the mindset we're taking of being defending champions, that doesn't matter at this point. We're gearing up to win a golf tournament just like we were at this time last year."

Last season, the Miners won the stroke play portion of the championship after pulling away from their tie with North Texas to take sole possession of first place by four strokes with 15-over 879 (287-294-298). The team would then go on to defeat Southern Miss (4-1, semifinals) and Charlotte (4-1, finals) in match-play format to win the 2017 championship, the first conference title since 1985 and only the second in program history. UTEP also punched its ticket to the NCAA Regionals for the first time as a team since 2004, where it finished in ninth place.

"The biggest thing with the way our format works is that we need to get to match play," Lieberwirth said. "Whether we're the one seed or the four seed, it doesn't matter, we just need to get to that top-four. The best way to try to get to that top-four is by going out and winning the stroke play portion, not just trying to hang on and get that fourth spot. We're going to try to play well enough to get that one seed and enter match play with a lot of momentum on our side. That's the key, first things first play solidly in the stroke play, get to match play and then that day, anything can happen."

Three returners from last season's championship lineup will return in seniors Charles Corner and Nicklas Pihl and junior Aaron Terrazas. They will be accompanied by Settavut Paradee and Santiago Castilla, making their conference tournament debuts.

"This year's team is different than last year's team, we've still got plenty of talent, we just probably have to play a little bit better individually in order to put ourselves in position to win than we might have had to last year," Lieberwirth said.

Corner has paced the team as the Miners' top finisher in four of five spring tournaments. The Canada product has constructed a team-best 71.5 stroke average through 10 events with three top-five finishes. His second-place showing at the Price's Give 'Em Five Invitational lifted UTEP to a team crown.

Pihl topped the Miners' scorecard for the first time in the spring at the Bandon Dunes Championship on March 13 after firing a low-round of 70 to compile a 1-under 212 (71-71-70) score and a share of 15th place. Pihl will be playing in his fourth conference championship.

Terrazas is coming off a strong showing at the prestigious Western Intercollegiate on April 8, where his second round score of 67 helped him to a share of 26th place out of 96 competitors to lead the Miners. Terrazas carded five birdies in round two, including four in his first seven holes, and only bogeyed twice for the team's low round of the tournament. His effort at the Lone Star Invitational, where he finished with a share of 13th place, helped boost the Miners to a third place finish out of 15 teams, their best finish of the spring.

Paradee has played all six spring tournaments, with his best finish being a top-20 performance at the Lone Star Invitational, where his 3-over 219 (73-74-72) score gave him a share of 18th. Paradee shot his low round of 72 to push him 15 spots up the leaderboard for his finish.

Castilla has three spring tournaments under his belt, but his best finish came at the Herb Wimberly Intercollegiate in the fall, where he was the top Miner individual with his tie for 14th place after firing 3-over 216 (70-77-69), carding eight birdies throughout the tournament.

"I think things are progressing nicely, I feel good," Lieberwirth said. "We want to be fully prepared but we don't want to over prepare going in. I think that's something, especially some of our younger players, can fall into that trap of trying to over-do it and be too perfect going into a tournament like this. We want to treat this just like any other event. We're not trying to put it up on any type of pedestal just because it's the conference tournament."


Live stats of the conference tournament can be followed through Golfstat: http://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=15442 .

Print Friendly Version