6B
SPORTS / TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
GOLF
Jayhawks tied for eighth in tournament
The men's golf team aims for top-five finish at the Rice Intercollegiate Tournament in Houston, Texas
BY ANDREW WITUSZYN-
SKI
awituszynski@kansan.com
most successful fall season in recent memory, which included three top-three finishes.
Despite the long break and the inability to practice outside this winter, the men's golf was locked in an eighth place tie with Missouri State at the Rice Intercollegiate Tournament.
With a total score of 625 strokes, Kansas is just four shots behind Big 12 rival Nebraska.
Rice sits alone at the top of the leaderboard with a two-round total of 594 strokes with one round to go. 16 teams are competing in the tournament at Westwood Golf Club in Houston, Texas.
Kansas is coming off of its
The bad winter weather prevented the lavahawks
Coach Kit Grove said he was disappointed about the team's play in the first round.
from practicing as much as they would have liked leading up to the tournament.
such a long break," Barabee said. "Hopefully we'll be ready to go when March comes around."
"We threw pail out of the window and we were shooting for scores around 75," Grove said. "But we ended up with way too many scores in the 80s."
"We have a great chance to shoot up the leaderboard."
Though the team didn't start off the way they wanted, Barbee shot back-to-back-rounds of 76 that landed him in the top 10.
In the second round, the Jayhawks moved from 12th to eighth place.
Barbee was surprised by his place individually because he said he thought he had struggled early.
"I didn't play that great in the morning," Barabee said. "I guess I was able to hang in there, but I never really got anything going."
Nate Barbee, a Dakota Dunes, S.D., junior, attributed some of the team's poor play in the morning to the long off-season.
"If we had played as well in the morning as we did in the afternoon wed be right where we want to be," Grove said. "But it didn't go that way and that's life."
"It's hard to come back after
"We're going to look to move up to fifth place." Grove said. "if
Even with the start the Jayhawks had, they are still in position to ink another top five.
BRYAN HACKENBERG
Neb. senior
we can pull it off, I'd be very pleased with that."
Fourth place Nebraska is four strokes ahead of Kansas. That gives the lawhawks
added incentive to move up the leaderboard.
"We see Nebraska quite a bit," Grove said. "They got the best of us in the fall, so we'd like to get even with them."
Barbee said he'd also like to improve individually.
"We're wanting a top-five finish as a team and I'd like to get up in the top five individually as well," Barbee said. "That would be a great start for us this season."
"We definitely have the talent to do it if we can stay composed, not get angry and all shoot around 75 like Coach wants," Bryan Hakenberg, a senior from Nebraska, said. "We have a great chance to shoot up the leaderboard."
Edited by Michael Holtz
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAN FILE PHOTO
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