It wasn’t the ending the ISU men’s golf team was looking for.

In what may have been their final meet of the season, the Cyclones finished eighth in the Big 12 Championship and in all likelihood will not qualify to move on to the NCAA Central Regional.

“We’re not happy at all,” ISU head coach Jay Horton said. “It’s an improvement from years past, but we went down with every intention to win. We slipped up on the final nine [Monday] and played one hole very poorly. We know we should have easily passed the three teams one shot ahead of us.”

The Cyclones finished with a three-round total of 894, one shot behind Colorado, Kansas and Texas Tech. They were also just three shots behind fourth-place finisher Kansas State, all teams the Cyclones felt they should have beaten. Texas won the team title, carding a total of 864, good for a six-stroke win over Oklahoma.

Iowa State needed to finish ahead of at least the four teams immediately ahead of them to have a chance of advancing.

“Team-wise, we’ll be one spot out,” Horton said. “On the outside looking in.”

Individually, the Cyclones were led by Tyler Swanson, whose rounds of 75-76-72 gave him a 19th-place finish.

“I was proud of how hard they all battled. That first round we were able to throw out a 76 [as our high score],” Horton said.

Senior Jeremy Lyons, playing in what could be his final tournament as a Cyclone, entered the final round of play in ninth place before fading with a closing round of 81, dropping him to a 35th-place finish.

“He’s disappointed, and I feel bad for him,” Horton said. “He played terrific [Monday] after getting off to a bad start.

“He was set up and confident, and I had all the faith in the world in him, and he had all the faith in the world in himself. He turned OK, but [hole] 13 had been a problem for him, and he had trouble on a couple of holes. It wasn’t the way he wanted to finish.”

Lyons was 2-over-par for his round after his first nine holes before making a quadruple bogey at 11 and a triple at 13 to play his final nine in 44.

Drew Dalziel (75-74-76) and Curtis Foster (71-78-76) finished in a tie for 29th, and Paul Huddle (76-79-76) rounded out the Cyclones’ scoring in a tie for 47th.

Scoring was high throughout the field, as the competition was faced with a difficult Prairie Dunes Country Club.

“The course was extremely difficult — it was basically like playing a U.S. Open,” Horton said. “The course was firm and windy. You have to be on the top of your game to play well. It doesn’t take much of a slip to bring out a bad round.”