Nothing went right for the ISU golf team last weekend as it opened its season with a last-place showing at the Notre Dame Invitational and Central Regional Preview.

The Cyclones finished six shots from 14th place in the 15-team tournament and were 23 strokes out of the top 10. Iowa State finished with a three-round total of 931.

After the tournament, ISU head coach Jay Horton was at a loss as to why his team performed the way they did.

“This week was terrible,” Horton said. “I expected a lot more out of these guys, and I think the guys expected more out of themselves, too. It was tough.”

Horton set an eighth-place finish as a goal for his team, looking to see how it would respond to the first test of the year.

“When I said eighth place, I was trying to be realistic,” Horton said. “All these teams made it into regionals last year, with the exception of Michigan State, but they’re good this year. I knew some of the teams were down this year and that some were better. I thought if we could finish eighth, which I think was extremely obtainable, would have been a nice start.”

Kent State won the event, shooting a team total of 871.

Four other Big 12 teams participated in the tournament, with Texas Tech and Colorado finishing third and fourth, respectively.

“Coming into the tournament, we didn’t really know what to expect,” said junior Drew Dalziel. “We felt like we had an honest chance. We thought that eighth was giving us a fair chance.”

Dalziel led the Cyclones with a 226 total, shooting rounds of 76-72-77, good for a tie for 32nd place.

Three freshman in their first college experience followed Dalziel.Chris Baker (t-40), Joe Cermak (t-65) and Patrick Hall (t-76) were the next three Cyclone scorers, giving the trio valuable experience.

“Having three guys playing their first college event, it’s just like any other sport. You can talk about it all you want, but until you get on the field of play you don’t know what to expect,” Horton said.

Paul Huddle rounded out the Cyclone scoring, finishing tied with Hall for 76th place.

Both Horton and Dalziel said the team has been playing well in practice. Now the team needs to find a way to move that success onto the course during events.

“We didn’t really know what to expect, going into our first tournament having three people who hadn’t played a tournament before,” Dalziel said. “We felt pretty good going into the tournament. We’d been playing well. We’re not really sure what happened.”

Huddle said the Cyclones can’t do worse the next time they play.

“We have nothing to lose,” he said. “We finished last so we have more to improve on.

“We need to play like we do in practice every day and stop shooting these rounds in the 80s when we’re capable of shooting in the low 70s.”