The Iowa State men’s golf team had a mediocre showing in Corvallis, Oregon at the Oregon State Invitational. After a ninth place finish last week, the Cyclones finished 10th out of 18 teams this week.

The Cyclones fired a 54-hole total of 875, 19 strokes off the pace set by Oregon, Washington and UCLA.

For the first time all season, Jason Knutzon did not lead the team in scoring. Matt Lewis, a senior, shot a 1-under par total of 215 (72-68-75) to finish in a tie for 12th. John Brackmann tied for 33rd with a 220. Cory Braunschweig fired a 222 for a tie for 44th. Knutzon tied for 54th with a 223 and Scott Hart tied for 80th with 229.

The most surprising was Knutzon’s play, something the team is not used to.

“Jason had a good first round,” head coach Jamie Bermel said. “He made some mistakes in the second round and had a slow start the final round. His putting is off and has been for most of the year.”

Trysting Golf Club was a “fairly flat” course with a “good layout” according to Bermel. The undulations in the greens and the difficult pins were a big reason for the high scoring.

“Cory’s 78 was mostly a result of impatience when firing at the greens,” Bermel said. “He struck the ball very well, but the putts did not drop for him.”

“I’m not really concerned with what’s happened the last couple of weeks,” Bermel said. “We’ve played against quality competition and we have shot average. Anytime you shoot average like we did, you’re going to get run over in tournaments like this. However, we do need better play of out Jason to compete at a high level.”

Medalist honors were taken by B.J. Schlagenhauf of UCLA. He shot an 8-under 208 to win by two shots.

“He is a solid golfer,” Bermel said. “When I coached at Drake we competed against him and everything is solid in his game.”

The team champion was UCLA in a playoff over Oregon and Washington.

“The Pac-10 has some solid teams,” Bermel said. “Oregon has all seniors. UCLA is solid. Brigham Young (not in the conference) has a good team. From this tournament, there could be about a dozen teams that make the NCAAs.”

The Cyclones have a little less than three weeks off before they conclude the fall season in Waco, Texas for the Baylor Collegiate at Ridgewood Country Club which will have mainly Big 12 teams. How will the Cyclones prepare for this?

“We’re going to take a couple of days off and then get back at it,” Bermel said. “We’ve been going hard for the last five or six weeks. We’re going to do some playing within the squad and requalify. We need to get better putting out of everyone and better play out of the fifth spot. Hopefully, we can get it figured out.”