Bowling Green State University Athletics
Saturday, April 21
West Lafayette, Ind.
All Day
Bowling Green State University
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Boilermaker Invitational
Falcons Close Regular Season at Boilermaker Invitational
April 19, 2012 | Men's Golf
With the Mid-American Conference Championships just two weeks away, the Bowling Green State University men's golf team travels to West Lafayette, Ind. this weekend for what will be their final -- and could be their most important -- tournament of the 2011-12 regular season. The 2012 Boilermaker Invitational will be hosted by Purdue University and will be held on Saturday and Sunday (April 21-22).
The 54-hole event will be contested at the Kampen course of the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex. The par-72 course plays to a distance of 7,465 yards. Saturday's action will feature 36 holes and will begin at 8:45 a.m. with a shotgun start. The final 18 holes begin on Sunday at the same time. Tee times will be staggered from holes 1 and 10 and will be based on the previous day's results.
This year's field will be heavily stocked with teams from the MAC and the Big Ten. Of the 18 competing teams, six (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue, Wisconsin) are from the Big Ten, while another seven are from the MAC. Three (Creighton, Drake, Wichita State) hail from the Missouri Valley Conference. Texas Christian and Loyola (Ill.) complete the field.
Seven of the top 50 teams in the country, according to the most recent Golfweek/Sagarin rankings, are competing in this year's tournament. That group is led by Kent State, who is ranked 21st nationally. BGSU (ranked 154th) is 12th among the 18 teams and fifth out of the seven MAC schools.
In what is essentially a MAC Championships preview, BGSU will face all but two of its conference opponents this weekend. Aside from Bowling Green and Kent State, the MAC competitors include Akron, Eastern Michigan, Miami, Northern Illinois and Toledo. Only Ball State and Ohio will not be playing in this event.
The Falcons should come into this weekend with confidence built from last April's trip to West Lafayette. In the 2011 Boilermaker Invitational, Parker Hewit and Drew Preston led BGSU to a third place finish with a composite 891 (296-306-289). Hewit finished third overall (217) and posted two rounds of 71, while Preston tied for 11th after shooting 222, which included a final-round 72.
Wes Gates and Chris Melvin tied for 20th place with matching 228s, while Charlie Olson finished further back after posting a 239 for the tournament. Despite the low finish, Olson carded a 72 in the final round to help BGSU's cause.
This year, Hewit and Preston are playing in their final regular season events as members of the Falcon golf team. Hewit is closing his senior campaign on a high note. He leads the team in scoring average and has back-to-back top-20 finishes. Preston struggled last weekend but did finish 12th two weeks ago at the Rutherford Intercollegiate.
Live scoring of the event will be available here. Complete results and daily recaps will be available after both days of the tournament here at BGSUFalcons.com.
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