Coming off a 12th place finish out of 17 teams at the Weisst Foundation Classic, the men’s golf team is aiming to defeat some of the teams they lost to this weekend at the CCIW tournament.
Going off the Weist Foundation Classic, the VIkings lost to five CCIW teams, Carthage College, Wheaton College, North Central College, Millikin University and Illinois Wesleyan. They defeated two CCIW teams, North Park University and Carroll University.
Head coach Paul Del Vecchio said in an email the two day tournament didn’t go well for the Vikings.
“(The tournament went) not as well as we had hoped,” Del Vecchio said. “We really struggled the second day in the wind. It was steady at 20 mph all day.”
Before the Weist Foundation Classic, senior captain Tanner Obal said this would be a good start for seeing how the team looks against other teams in the conference.
“We’re definitely looking to compete with everyone in the field, but also see how we stack against conference opponents,” Obal said. “It’s also the same course we’ll be playing at conference so we’ll use this as an opportunity to strategize for the tournament.”
Obal tied with fellow senior Michael Jacobs for fourth place on the team and 60th place at the Weist Foundation Classic. Sophomore Alex Sierra finished second for the team in 29th and senior Eric Swanson finished first for the team in 25th.
Del Vecchio said Swanson has been doing well this eason.
“He trusts his swing the most so he has the confidence right now,” Del Vecchio said.
Before the conference tournament, the team will be playing at the Scott/Fire Classic in Galesburg, Ill.
For the conference tournament, Obal said the goal for the team is to improve upon how they played last year by finishing higher than fifth place.
“I definitely think we can do that,” Obal said.
Individually, Obal said his goal is to finish in the top 10 at conference and be All-Conference. Obal said he’s been just short the past three year
Del Vecchio said he’ll be using the next weeks to prepare the team for the CCIW tournament.
“Our goal is aalways to prepare the best we can for each tournament,” Del Vecchio said. “If we can play each shot to the very best of our ability then everything else will take care of itself. We have a lot of guys that are real close to playing some good golf, they just need to work on few things and get the confidence back.”
The men’s golf CCIW Tournament will begin Friday, May 4 and go to Sunday, May 6.