UCCS golf wins second straight RMAC title

The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs golf team won its second consecutive Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championship Tuesday with a victory at the Northwest Region Spring head-to-Head Tournament at The Pinery Country Club in Parker, Colo.

Despite starting Tuesday's third round in 38-degree temperatures with an icy rain, the Mountain Lions shot a tournament-best round of 291 behind even-par 72s by Tyler Bishop and Trent Daum.

"The conditions were difficult on both days," said UCCS coach Phil Trujillo. "We practice in tough weather all the time, so when the team got here they just said ‘let's get it on.'"

UCCS outdistanced second-place Colorado State-Pueblo by 12 strokes and third-place St. Cloud State by 21 strokes.

The Northwest Region Spring Head-to-Head was the final of four tournaments picked to decide the RMAC championship. UCCS entered Tuesday's round with an aggregate 52-stroke lead over second-place Western New Mexico and finished it with a 72-stroke advantage.

The win also sealed the top seed at the Northwest Region Championships, which will be played May 7-9 at Fox Hollow Golf Course in Lakewood. The Northwest region Championship will be held in conjunction with the West Region Championship in an NCAA Super Regional, although the scores of each regional will be kept separately.

The winner of the regional tournament qualifies for the NCAA Division II National Championship Tournament on May 22-25 at Allendale, Mich.

Eric Winder shot a 1-over par 73 for UCCS Tuesday and finished with a three-round score of 219, good for second place overall behind Colorado Mines' Mark Vallee. Bishop and Kyle Logan each shot 221 to finish in a fourth-place tie, while Daum was 17th at 225 and Ross McDermott was 42nd with a 236.