Inexperience was not a factor as the Cyclone men had a strong showing in their first golf tournament of the year.

The team fired a 54-hole round 881 to place fourth out of 17 teams at the Hawkeye Invitational Sunday at the Finkbine Golf Course in Iowa City.

Coach Jay Horton was very happy with the finish but feels there are still vast improvements to be made.

He feels even though the team is extremely young, it does have enough talent and competitiveness to win some tournaments down the road.

“I don’t want them to settle for average,” Horton said. “I know they have confidence in themselves.”

Redshirt freshmen Matt Gatchel and junior Aaron Patton were the top finishers for the Cyclones, both of whom finished in a four-way tie for 11th place.

They each shot a 219, which was eight strokes behind the winner.

Gatchel’s and Pattons’ high finish was no surprise to anyone after both had very successful qualifying seasons.

Finishing 18th on the weekend was Cyclone golfer Jeremy Lyons, who shot a three-round total of 221.

Kevin Oswald and Mark Weghorst finished 38th and 41st, respectively, to round out the scores for the team.

Kent ran away with the team title, shooting a three-round total of 859, 20 strokes better than the closest competitor.

They accomplished this by riding the back of Dustin Riedon, who won the individual medalist honors by shooting a 211 on the weekend.

Rounding out the top three in the team battle were Northern Illinois and University of Indiana.

Overall, coach Horton was impressed with his team’s high finish in its first competitive tournament of the year

“It was a good start to the season. They fought throughout the whole round,” Horton said. “Second place was attainable. We only missed by a stroke or two.”

He did point out that it will only get harder the rest of the year. Most of the teams in the tournament are not in Iowa State’s district and not teams they will have to battle later in the season.

Even with the impressive finish, the Cyclone lineup is not etched in stone.

“We have a healthy, competitive situation with people fighting for spots on the team.” Horton said.

Getting a clean sweep of the Hawks this weekend also made the team happy.

With ISU beating Iowa by six strokes, that only added to the Cyclone domination shared with the football and soccer teams.

“After Saturday’s round, my players rushed back to watch the game on T.V., happy to see the Cyclones winning.” Horton said

This weekend, the Cyclone linksters travel to University of Kansas for the local invitational.

This tournament should be a little more competitive top to bottom. Some of the teams competing this weekend are Kansas, Kansas State, Arkansas State, Missouri, Northern Iowa and Drake.

“This should be an early preview,” Horton said. “These are going to be teams we have to beat later in our district.”