Men's golf places ninth at GLVC

The UM-St. Louis men's golf squad struggled to a 9th place finish at the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament early last week. Standing out above the team's performance however, was the play of junior Michael Lueders, who finished the event tied for third in the individual standings.

Lueders' third place finish matched the best individual finish by a UM-St. Louis golfer since the Rivermen joined the GLVC, equaling the third place finish in the 2000 GLVC tournament by former UM-St. Louis golfer Dennis Lees. Lueders three-round score of 220 (74-76-70) was the best ever tournament score of any Rivermen golfer at the GLVC tournament.

After starting the tournament with an opening round 74, Lueders shot a 76 in the second round. He then finished strong with a tournament best round of 70 in his final round. That finish catapulted Lueders to a top-five finish and left him just four strokes off the top score of 216. "Going into that last round I just never gave up on myself or my team," Lueders said, "I was mostly just focusing on trying to make some putts and grind it out...and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out."

Rain was scattered throughout the three-day event at the Otter Creek Golf Course in Columbus, Indiana. According to Coach Dustin Ashby, the conditions did not seem to have a huge impact on Lueder's game. "The golf course was playing really tough, especially on day two," Coach Ashby said, "but Mike consistently hit the ball well and really did a great job to get back into contention like he did."

Lueders was coming off two middle-of-the-pack finishes in the both the Rivermen Invitational and the Bellarmine Invitational. "Michael has had a good semester, but I think this was the tournament where he put it all together and had his breakthrough performance," Coach Ashby said.

Of the other UM-St. Louis golfers in the tournament, Diego Jimenez tied for 32nd with a 237 (73-80-84) and David Archibald placed 43rd with a 250 (83-85-82). Marcus Deckert came in 47th after shooting a 272 (80-88-104) and Eric Fakes took 49th with a 277 (86-96-95). Overall, the Rivermen were doomed by shooting 329 and 331 in the second and third rounds, respectively. Those rounds were the two highest team scores of the tournament. The team finished the event by placing ninth out of the 10 competing teams with a three-round score of 970 (310-329-331).