Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
Penn State
Northwestern Opens Big Ten Match Play With Tiebreak Win Over Penn State
2/10/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Feb. 10, 2012
Big Ten Match Play Brackets and Results
BRADENTON, Fla. -- No. 7 seed Northwestern opened its two-time title defense at the Big Ten Match Play Championship at Concessions Golf Club with a dog fight against No. 10 seed Penn State Friday morning, pulling out a 3-3 tiebreaker win with a back-nine charge from senior Sam Chien (San Diego, Calif./Mt. Carmel).
With the score tied, 2-2, and Northwestern trailing both matches left on the course through 14 holes, Chien fought back to give the Wildcats the victory. Chien most notable pitched in for an eagle on his 16th hole before a tap-in birdie on his 17th flipped the deficit into a 1-up lead with one hole to play. Both competitors made par on the 18th to give Chien and NU the win.
The tiebreaker is based on holes won, and sophomore Jack Perry's (Santa Barbara, Calif./Santa Barbara) massive 7 and 6 victory for the Wildcats went a long way toward earning the victory for NU, which is its fourth straight in the first round of the Big Ten Match Play tourney and launched Northwestern into a quarterfinal match with Iowa.
The first round team match between the Wildcats and Nittany Lions began on the back nine; following is a blow-by-blow account of each individual match:
No. 6: Jens Talbert (PSU) def. Matthew Negri (NU), 2 and 1
After losing the first hole with a bogey, Matthew Negri (El Cajon, Calif./Grossmont) came immediately back to 1-up through three holes when his competitor carded back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 11 and 12. Neither competitor in this match had much luck finding red numbers, exchanging hole wins via pars and bogeys until Negri found himself 2-down through 10 holes and fought back with a huge birdie at No. 2 to cut his deficit in half before another birdie at No. 3 brought the match to all square.
A Negri bogey on No. 5 put Talbert back 1-up before a double bogey at No. 7 led to an eventual 2 and 1 loss for the NU freshman.
No. 5: Nick Losole (NU) def. Xander McDonald-Smith (PSU), 5 and 4
Junior Nick Losole (Scottsdale, Ariz./Scottsdale Notre Dame) and Penn State's McDonald-Smith matched scores through the first four holes Friday morning until a McDonald-Smith bogey at No. 14 gave Losole a 1-up edge. Losole extended that lead to 2-up on the difficult par-5 17th hole with a winning bogey after his competitor carded a double-bogey seven.
Losole played the next stretch of holes par-par-par-par while his foe went birdie-bogey-double bogey-bogey to push the Wildcat's lead to 4-up through 12. A final birdie on the fifth hole gave the sophomore a resounding 5 and 4 victory.
No. 4: Jay Woodward (PSU) def. Bennett Lavin (NU), 5 and 4
Northwestern freshman Bennett Lavin (Deerfield, Ill./Deerfield) quickly found himself 3-down after four holes of play in his first-career Big Ten Match Play face-off. Lavin made birdie at the 545-yard par-5 13th, but it was not enough to counter Woodward's eagle on that hole. The NU youngster fought back immediately with a second-straight birdie, this one a winner on the 190-yard par-3 14th to pull back to 2-down.
Lavin was never able to get closer than that, eventually falling to Woodward, 5 and 4.
No. 3: Sam Chien (NU) def. Ernesto Marin (PSU), 1-up
Chien endured a tough stretch of three-straight bogeys during the front nine of his match against Penn State's Ernesto Marin, making the turn 2-down. He immediately crawled closer with an up-and-down from 40 yards for par, punctuating his win with a fist pump. A Chien par on the 210-yard par-3 fourth hole eventually brought this match back to all square.
Marin jumped back into the lead via a birdie on No. 5, then both players made bogey on the par-3 sixth hole when Chien's iron skipped over the back of the green and his opponent missed a four-footer for par. Chien seized on the opportunity, pitching in for eagle on No. 7 before backing up a beautiful pitching wedge from 126 yards for a tap-in birdie on No. 8 to stand dormie on the final tee. Both players made par on the final hole to give Chien the win.
No. 2: Jack Perry (NU) def. Shane Stewart (PSU), 7 and 6
Sophomore Jack Perry (Santa Barbara, Calif./Santa Barbara) took advantage of a weak start from Penn State's Shane Stewart to storm out to a 3-up lead through three holes following a par-birdie-par start of his own. Head coach Pat Goss was impressed with Perry's opening par, considering he put five balls in the water on the 408-yard par-4 10th during Thursday's practice round.
Stewart made a great shot in toward the hole on the par-3 14th, but Perry responded with a nice up-and-down to halve the hole. After falling to 2-up with a bogey at No. 16, Perry took over the match with a vengeance. The sophomore played the next five holes in 2-under par and won every one to close out a massive 7 and 6 victory.
No. 1: Tommy McDonagh (PSU) def. Eric Chun (NU), 1-up
Senior Eric Chun (Ansung City, South Korea/International Christian School) made seven-straight pars to start his Friday morning match, but the score in the pairing was quite volatile owing to Penn State's Tommy McDonagh. The Nittany Lion opened with two bogeys, then birdied the following two holes to give Chun a 2-up lead before quickly erasing that cushion. Similar to the Perry-Stewart match, Penn State's competitor made a wonderful tee shot on the par-3 13th but Chun held his ground with an up-and-down to halve the hole with par. "(The) hole looked lost," Goss tweeted.
Chun took an adventurous route to a win on the 16th, taking an unplayable lie before scrambling for a winning par to re-establish a 1-up edge that disappeared on the very next hole when McDonagh made an eagle. That score started a string of three-straight wins for the Nittany Lion, who took a 2-up lead through 10 holes. Chun immediately fought back with a birdie on No. 3 and a par at No. 4 to win both holes and bring his match back to all square through 13.
McDonagh went back up with a winning birdie on No. 5, but the battle-tested Chun made par at the tough 180-yard par-3 sixth to again knot the match. McDonagh would not go away, however, making birdie at No. 8 to regain the lead before closing out the match to hand Chun his first Big Ten Match Play loss in four years. He now is 10-1-1 all-time in the tournament.
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