THIS WEEK'S TOURNAMENT
UCCS Men's Golf marches down to Pueblo, Colo. this week to compete in the NCAA West/South Central Regional Tournament at the Pueblo Country Club. The three-day tournament is set to begin on Thursday, May 5 and run through Saturday, May 7 with the Mountain Lions teeing off starting at 7:30 a.m. Thursday morning.

TOURNAMENT INFORMATION
Live Results: https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=25427
Course | Location: Pueblo Country Club | Pueblo, Colo.
Par | Yardage: 71 | 6,522 Yards
 
Last Time Out
The Mountain Lions worked their way to a runner-up finish at the RMAC Championships with all five golfers cracking the top-25, including freshman Rio Newcombe who was crowned the individual RMAC Champion.
Newcombe was exceptional in the third and final round as he shot one stroke better than his first and second rounds by riding six birdies towards a four-under par 68. The freshman had just two bogeys on the day as he shot one-under on the front-nine to then turned it on through the back-nine by making four birdies, including three birdies on the final five holes to claim the individual title at a 206 (69, 69, 68).
Redshirt junior Barrett Jones (T12) produced another productive day beginning with an eagle for the second straight day on the par-5 second while adding his first birdie on the par-3 sixth to go two under-par through nine holes of play. After stringing together six consecutive pars, Jones birdied the par-3 15th then went consecutive birdies on the par-5 17th and par-4 18th to finish two-under on day three and a one-under par 215 (75, 70, 70) for the tournament.
Travis Bossio improved three strokes from his round one and two 74's by carding a one-under par 71 to tie for 18th at a final score of 219 (74, 74, 71). The redshirt junior shot his lowest round of the tournament by registering five birdies and 10 pars, including three of those birdies and five pars coming on the front-nine for a one-under par.
Recording a team high 14 pars to card a two over-par on the day and for the tournament was Brandon Bervig who finished tied for 16th at a 218 (72, 72, 74).
At three-over par (75) in the last round was sophomore Brady Haake who finished five-over par 221 (74, 72, 75) to tie for 21^st through three rounds of play as the Arizona native notched four birdies and eight pars to close out his third round.

MOUNTAIN LIONS COMPETING
The five Mountain Lions competing this week are:
 

Golfer	Rounds	Stroke Average
Rio Newcombe	23	73.87
Barrett Jones	26	74.15
Travis Bossio	16	74.81
Brandon Bervig	23	75.22
Brady Haake	26	74.50

THE FIELD
UCCS will be up against a total of 19 schools including 9 from the South Central region and 10 from the West Region.

South Central:

1. Oklahoma Christian
2. Midwestern State
3. Colorado State University Pueblo
4. Cameron
5. Texas A&M-Commerce
6. St. Mary's (Texas)
7. Colorado Christian
8. Colorado-Colorado Springs
9. Colorado Mesa
10. West Texas A&M

West:

1. Western Washington
2. Simon Fraser
3. Sonoma State
4. Chico State
5. Cal State Monterey Bay
6. Cal State San Bernardino
7. Cal State San Marcos
8. Stanislaus State
9. Cal State East Bay
10. Hawaii Pacific

WEATHER FORECAST
The weather in Pueblo, Colo. calls for hot and dry weather staring with a high of 71 degrees on Thursday with wins expected to be calm at 5-10 miles-per-hour.

On Friday, the temperature will climb to a high of 86 degrees with winds also expected to jump up to 10-15 miles-per-hour.

For Saturday, the forecast calls for mainly sunny skies and a high of 89 degrees with the winds continually getting higher with gusts up to 15-25 miles-per-hour.

HOT TAKES

• UCCS will be making their first NCAA Regional Tournament appearance as a team for the first time in four years (2018).
• UCCS claimed their best RMAC Championship finish in seven years (2017, First Place) off their lowest tournament score of the season (-9, 855).
• Rio Newcombe became the first Mountain Lion to win the RMAC individual title since 2017 when Colin Prater won it all with a 14-under par (199).
• At conference championships, the Mountain Lions bested all nine teams in par-3 scoring (+4) with Barrett Jones shooting one-under to tie for the second-best score as Brandon Bervig and Rio Newcombe each shot even-par on par-3's to tie for the fifth best score.
• The top par-5 score among teams also belonged to the Mountain Lions (-27) with Brady Haake standing alone in first with an RMAC Championship best nine-under par.
• With 65 birdies, the Mountain Lions registered the most birdies out of any team as Newcombe led all 45 individuals with 16 birdies on the championship stage. Bervig, Haake, and Travis Bossio all tallied 13 birdies to tie for the seventh most.

UCCS UNDER HEAD COACH PHIL TRUJILLO
Phil Trujillo is in his 21st year of coaching at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and has built a program with 13 RMAC championships, 17 consecutive NCAA Division II regional championship appearances and six national berths. The program is consistently ranked in the top-20 of Division II rankings.

Trujillo is a four-time RMAC Coach of the Year and a seven-time Golf Coaches Association of America Regional Coach of the Year. The Mountain Lions have never finished lower than seventh at the RMAC Championships and won or shared the conference regular season and tournament titles in the 2015-16 and 2016-2017 seasons. In 2009, UCCS won the NCAA regional tournament.

Seven Mountain Lions have combined for nine All-America titles under Trujillo. Colin Prater became the first golfer in program history to earn First Team honors in 2017 and accomplished that his last two seasons. Three Mountain Lions have earned RMAC Freshman of the Year honors.
 
UPCOMING TOURNAMENT
At a minimum, the top three teams and the top two student-athletes not with a team from each regional will advance to the finals May 16-20 at TPC Michigan in Detroit, Michigan.
The remaining eight team berths will be allocated based on the regions represented in the prior year's head-to-head medal play portion of the championships, with the maximum number of teams from a given region capped at seven. The finals will be hosted by Wayne State (Michigan) and the Detroit Sports Commission.
 
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As a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs competes in 16 varsity sports in NCAA Division II intercollegiate athletics.