The following is the seventh in a summer long series, featuring all 14 IUPUI varsity teams. New features will be posted each Wednesday at noon on IUPUIJags.com. The full summer schedule is posted at the bottom of this story.
Things went pretty well until the Summit League Tournament where the Jaguars finished in second place, 10 strokes behind UMKC, and as a result, missed out on the NCAA Regionals.
“We finished below our expectations at the tournament,” IUPUI Head Coach
John Andrews said. “Our goal was to win the conference, not to finish second. At the end of the second round we had a little slip-up and let UMKC take the lead. Two things happen when someone gets the lead. A: They can’t hold onto the lead and they blow it, or B: they take a huge advantage like UMKC did and they never let us catch back up.”
“Overall, I think we played good, but not great,” said Engle, who'll be a fifth-year senior this season. “We underachieved especially by not winning the conference. Our back nine on the second day is what I think killed us. If we had put a little more pressure on them, I think things might have been different.”
It wasn’t a total loss for IUPUI as Powell won the individual title at the Summit League Tournament and was named Summit League MVP. By doing so, he earned a spot in the Indiana Regional, becoming the first-ever Jaguar to merit an individual entry.
“Michael had been longing to win a tournament all season and it came at the right time for him,” Engle said. “He was so overjoyed by it and it was a tremendous experience for him. Hopefully he can do it again this year or one of rest of us can do it.”
Powell would finish in 65th place at the regional, hitting a 71 in the second round after a rough start at Wolf Run in Zionsville, Ind.. His performance was surprising to Andrews, who felt that if the team was there, things may have turned out differently.
“Michael had a bad first day and a bad last day. Those were his worst rounds of the year by far,” Andrews said. “He just wasn’t sharp, and I can’t believe I’m saying that about Michael Powell. I think early on he pressed a little bit, and I wished he would have played better in round three, but I think it was a fantastic experience for him. I think in an odd way that Michael would have played better had the team been there. I think it was odd for him not having them there, and my gut instinct tells me that he would have played better if they had been.”
In addition to Powell's award making the Indiana Regional, Engle, was named First Team All-Summit League. This summer, he shot a 139 at Purgatory to get invited to the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championships. The tournament, played in late June, was held at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore.. Engle finished +10 after shooting a 154 over two days.
“The US Pub Links was the biggest tournament I’ve ever played in,” Engle said. “I made it through two rounds of stroke play, but I didn’t make it to match play. Still, it was a great experience for me. I’d never been out west before and the course was right on the ocean.”
As much as Engle and Powell were catalysts this past season, the same will hold true in 2011-12.
The Jaguars began last season struggling at the Wolf Run Invitational (finishing 10th) before rebounding to win the John Dallio Memorial tournament and take second at both the Butler Fall Invitational and the Dayton Fall Invitational. The first big disappointment of the year came at the Joe Agee Invitational in Williamsburg, Va. in March where the Jaguars finished a disappointing third.
“We really played badly down the stretch at William and Mary,” Andrews said. “We just let it all go at the end. That’s the tournament that really sticks out in my mind.”
However, the spring had a number of high notes as the Jaguars won the Don Benbow Invitational and placed second at the Butler Spring Invitational. The Jags also took fourth at tournaments hosted by Indiana and Purdue, both against stiff competition. One tournament that really hurt the Jaguars was a tough 12th place finish at the Mizzou Intercollegiate.
“We just played bad at Missouri, and we ended up falling in the rankings because of it,” Andrews said. “That’s the tournament we probably played the worst all year. I don’t know what happened there.”
Trying to put the end of last season behind them, the Jaguars still remain stacked for next season. The Four Horsemen will be cut down to three with Moster graduating.
“We’re really going to miss Ben because his game has improved a lot. I think in the four years I played with him, he was the most improved player on the team,” Engle said. “You really can’t replace his stability and the way he led us as captain. However, I think we have some guys who can fill in his spot. The rest of us - me, Michael Powell, and Michael Davan - are gonna do our best to do so.”
There's still depth on the roster though. Highly touted recruit
Franky Kao redshirted this past season and should factor this year. To-be sophomore
Jose Pablo Segurola showed flashes of brilliance as a rookie and should provide some sturdiness to the lineup.
Philip Wirkkala will also be an option after playing sparingly a year ago.
IUPUI will also be adding a talented recruit in Santiago Ruiz from Colombia this fall. Ruiz was the No. 14 ranked amateur in Colombia and has been ranked as high as No. 12 in the country. He shot a career-best single-round 66 last November, and placed second at the Masters National Jr. Championship in 2009.
While waiting for Ruiz to arrive, members of the of the team are honing their skills in a variety of other tournaments in the off-season. Thoughts of coming up just short in the Summit League tournament linger in their minds.
“They are still hurting from it,” Andrews said. “They are definitely not happy with finishing second, I can assure you. The entire mood all the way from Primm, Nevada to Indianapolis was very somber.”
Andrews also thinks that the team isn’t focusing on anything in particular, just playing an all-around great game of golf.
“I think what they are practicing is what they’ve been focusing on since they’ve been 13, and that’s just playing good golf and to better their game. They are practicing what it’s like to play in tournaments and that’s why I recruited them because I don’t have to do a lot of monitoring in the summer.”
The upcoming fall schedule looks difficult on paper with tournaments at Michigan and Michigan State. However, Andrews in convinced that all the tournaments are winnable, and that things are looking good for his squad this season.
“We start off at Michigan State (Sept 3-4) then we play at Michigan the following week,” Andrews said. “After that, we head to St. John’s at Bethpage where they had the US Open. We also have the tournament at Dayton again, the Butler Invitational, and the tournament we won last year at DePaul and we end the fall at Achill Island. We expect to definitely go up and win at DePaul again, and the Butler tournament looks good for us as well as Dayton. I don’t know what to expect at Michigan and Michigan State, but I think we definitely have the ability to win the other three. We will definitely know how good we will be right off the bat.
“UMKC has all five guys (from the regional) returning. They probably will be the number one team all year and we’ll be number two. It depends on how Franky (Kao) and Jose (Sequrola) play. If they play well, we could definitely overtake them and be number one. We want to be in the regional. That’s the ultimate goal. That was the goal last year and that’s the goal again this year. We have three really good players who want to finish their careers in the regional, and I think we can do that.”
Engle agrees with his coach’s prediction.
“I don’t want to jinx us, but I think we have a lot going for us next year,” he said. “UMKC will definitely be tough, but I think with the team we have coming back and with our sophomores being more experienced, I think we should win the Summit League tournament because we’ve played the course before and we should make it to regionals.”
