2012 Midwest Conference Men’s Golf Championship: May 3-5
Round 3: May 5
Rockford, IL – The Prairie Fire concluded the 2011-12 season on Saturday with its first individual conference champion in four years and a fourth place team finish.
Senior Bobby Stuebi (Western Springs, IL, Lyons Township) led wire-to-wire, and according to men’s golf records maintained by the Midwest Conference, matched the best 54 hole total by an individual champ with his score of 222. Illinois College’s Mark Strain initially set the all-time 54 hole low score of 222 in 2009.
The Prairie Fire finished with a team score of 951 after shooting a 319 in the third round, the third lowest score of the day. Knox opened with a 314 and was in third place, just three strokes out of the lead, going into Friday’s second round. The Fire posted a 318 in round two and began Saturday’s final round in fourth place.
The top five teams this year posted scores that are among the lowest in the history of the tournament. The Prairie Fire finished in third place last year with 978, 27 strokes higher than this year’s score.
Carroll University won the team championship for the second straight year after shooting a 304 in the third round, the third lowest 18 hole score in a round in the history of the tournament.
The Pioneers had a first round score of 311, followed by a 310 in round two, and finished at 925. Carroll set a new tournament low score for 54 holes by a team champion. The previous low was 934 by Monmouth College in both 2007 and 2010.
Monmouth College and St. Norbert College tied for second after shooting 939 overall, five strokes behind Carroll.
The Green Knights entered the third round in first place but shot their highest score of the tournament, 320, on the final day as Carroll leapfrogged SNC during the final 18 holes of play. The Fighting Scots shot a 314 in the third round after first and second round scores of 316 and 309, respectively.
The Prairie Fire concluded play eight strokes ahead of fifth place Grinnell College (311-322-326 – 959). The remaining four teams shot over 1000. Illinois College was sixth (1018), followed by Lawrence University (1041), Ripon College (1049), and Beloit College (1083).
Stuebi, meanwhile, entered the third round with a two stroke lead over Nic Vrubley (78-74-152) of St. Norbert College. Vrubley fell to a tie for 10th place after carding an 85 in round three.
Stuebi shot a 76 in the first round, a 74 in round two, and then locked up the individual title with an even par 72 in round three. He medaled all four years of his college career, including one for tying for fourth place in the 2011 championship. Senior Jamie Jang (San Carlos, CA, Carlmont High School) also placed fourth last year's tournament.
Stuebi is the Fire’s first individual MWC men’s golf champion since 2008, when David Marquardt won the title with a score of 224. Knox won the conference title that year and advanced to the national tournament.
Cody Neu of Grinnell finished in second place (226), four strokes behind Stuebi. Sean McNamara of Monmouth (228) placed third while last year’s individual champion Eric Busalacchi of Carroll was fourth (229) and Carroll’s Blaine Lynch finished in fifth place (233).
Knox sophomore James Fenner (East Peoria, IL, Metamora) had his best round on Saturday with a 77 for a three round total of 235, tying him for sixth with two other golfers. Jang had a rough third round with a 94 resulted in an overall score of 249 and a tie for 22nd place. Senior Jacob Lewis (Bloomington, IL, Downs Tri-Valley) has the Prairie Fire’s fourth lowest score of 257.
A You Tube video interview with Stuebi from the Midwest Conference after the first round of the championship is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehFiiORPkh0
Complete results from the Midwest Conference are available at http://www.midwestconference.org/news/2012/5/5/MGOLF_0505121725.aspx
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