The Valparaiso University men's golf team played the first 18 holes of the three-day, 54-hole Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate, hosted by Wyoming at the par-72, 7305-yard Classic Club in Palm Desert, Calif., on Monday. Redshirt junior Ryan Somerville (Aurora, Ontario / Aurora) posted the team's top score.
 
How It Happened

• Somerville turned in a 71 (-1) and ranks tied for 29^th in the 124-player field. He started his day with a bogey on Hole 7, but then stroked par or better on the next 17 holes. He had two birdies in a three-hole stretch on 11 and 13.
• Sophomore Rodrigo Garcia Teruel (Puebla, Mexico / Modern Academy) and junior Adam Melliere (Zionsville, Ind. / Zionsville) tied for second on the team, as each of them posted a score of 74 (+2) on Monday. They are tied for 73^rd in the field. Garcia Teruel had a quad on his second hole of the day on Hole 8, but recovered by playing the next 16 holes at two under.
• As a team, Valpo finished the day tied for 16^th of 23 with a 294 (+6). Colorado is the team leader at 276. Four individuals are tied atop the leaderboard with 5-under 67s. Relative to conference peers, Valpo is behind Drake (285) but ahead of UNI (306).

Thoughts from Head Coach Dave Gring
"With the shotgun start, our team started on the toughest part of the golf course – Holes 7-11.  We knew we would have a good challenge to get the round started. With the exception of a quadruple bogey on the eighth Hole, our top four scorers for the day played that stretch even par.  We basically finished our first nine holes with a poor stretch in Holes 16-18, but the team bounced back with six birdies in the next five holes. We finished the final six holes of today's round with our top four scorers playing those holes at three under. I was very pleased to see that type of finish, especially with the round taking over 6.5 hours to play and the team needing a solid close to the round."
 
"The golf course demands a lot of accuracy off the tee. We still had the equivalent of nine double bogeys, primarily from poor tee shots with penalties. We are going to need to clean that up tomorrow with better course management and missing the correct areas on a given hole. We still had a good amount of 3-putts and most of that was from poor proximity hitting into the green and poor speed of putts on the greens. If we can tighten both of these areas up tomorrow, we can get our team scoring back into the red numbers."
 
"Ryan was super steady for us today. He had all pars, except his single bogey and two birdies.  He didn't have any penalties off the tee and he hit the ball well. Despite some bad luck on the fifth hole, Elliot had a terrific finish to his round, making birdies on three of his final six holes.  Lastly, I was proud of Rodrigo and grinding out a two over round, after making a quadruple bogey on his second hole of the day. He played the final 16 holes at -2 under, even though he didn't hit the ball very well."
 
Up Next
The Beacons will play the second round of the Desert Intercollegiate as Day 2 of the three-day event takes place on Tuesday. A link to live scoring via Clippd will be available on ValpoAthletics.com.