Mueller, Hrynewich Pace U-M to Fourth at Kepler Intercollegiate

Sunday, April 12

Columbus, Ohio

8:00 AM

Michigan

Robert Kepler Intercollegiate

Mueller, Hrynewich Pace U-M to Fourth at Kepler Intercollegiate

4/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf

April 12, 2015

Kyle Mueller

• Notes & Quotes

Site: Columbus, Ohio
Course: The Scarlet Course (par 72, 7,455 yards)
Tournament: Robert Kepler Intercollegiate
U-M Team Standing: 4th Place of 14 Teams (293-292-284/869)
Top U-M Individual: Kyle Mueller, 6th (72-72-69/213, E)
Next U-M Event: Fri-Sun., April 24-26 -- at Big Ten Championships (Newburgh, Ind.)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- With a final round two-under 69 from freshman Kyle Mueller, a one-under 70 from sophomore Reed Hrynewich and an even-par 71 from junior Chris O'Neill, the University of Michigan men's golf team posted a final round team best even-par 284 today (Sunday, April 12) to close with an 869 team total and move up four positions to finish fourth at Ohio State's Robert Kepler Intercollegiate held at the prestigious Scarlet Course.

After team tallies of 293 and 292 in yesterday's opening 36 holes, the Maize and Blue found itself eighth in the regular season finale's first day of play. Today, the Wolverines got off to a strong start and did not let up posting the tournament's top team score of the final round with an even par 284 to vault up four spots and close fourth with an 869 tally. U-M's top-five finish is its best since finishing third -- 14 years ago -- at OSU's 2001 event.

As he has done all season, Mueller led the Wolverines for the seventh time and during the day's final round charge as he posted his third top-10 finish of the season finishing sixth with an even-par 213 tally. After posting back-to-back 72s in yesterday's opening day of play, he closed with his team-best ninth sub-par round of the season with a two-under 69. Opening with an eagle on No. 1 and birding two -- Nos 3 and 6 -- he quickly found himself four-under heading to the seventh hole. After making eight straight pars, he closed bogeying two -- Nos. 15 and 17 -- of the final four holes to finish two-under.

Continuing his strong spring Hrynewich finished with a season-best tie for 13th with a four-over 217 tally. After leading the Wolverines with an even-par 71 in the first round, he could not get a red number in the second round as he posted a 76. Rebounding in the final round for the second straight even, he used four birdies to post his fifth sub-par round of the season at one-under 70 enabling his 217 and his second top 20 finish of the season.

After posting opening day rounds of 76 and 75, O'Neill rallied in the final round posting an even-par 71 giving him a 222 and tie for 29th finish. Fellow junior Brett McIntosh returned to the starting lineup and equaled his classmate's tally at 222 after he posted three straight rounds of 74. Sophomore Bryce Evon rounded out the Wolverine starting five as he tied for 50th at 227 (79-71-77), while sophomore Tom Swanson played as an individual and tied for 54th at 228 (78-76-74).

The Wolverines will now turn their attention to finishing the semester and prepping for postseason play. First up will be the Big Ten Championships, which will be Friday through Sunday (April 24-26). For the fourth straight year the conference championships will be held at a neutral location. This year, the men's championship moves to Victoria National in Newburgh, Indiana. The 72-hole event will feature all 14 Big Ten teams competing for an automatic bid to an NCAA regional.

Final Standings

 1. Georgia Tech        284-278-286 = 848 (-4) 2. SMU                 291-279-294 = 864 3. Ohio State          292-278-298 = 868 4. MICHIGAN            293-292-284 = 869 5. UNLV                287-290-297 = 874 6. Houston             289-292-299 = 880    Kent State          295-284-301 = 880 8. Northwestern        297-291-296 = 884 9. Penn State          294-290-303 = 88710. Maryland            295-296-299 = 89011. Michigan State      294-296-303 = 89312. Oregon State        296-299-299 = 89413. Nebraska            295-303-303 = 90114. Southern Illinois   316-301-294 = 911

Top Individuals

 1. Anders Albertson, Georgia Tech      71-67-70 = 208 (-5)    Vince Whaley, Georgia Tech          71-67-70 = 208 3. Bryson Dechambeau, SMU              74-67-69 = 210    Ollie Schniederjans, Georgia Tech   68-69-73 = 210 5. Grant Weaver, Ohio State            72-67-73 = 212 6. Kyle Mueller, U-M                   72-72-69 = 213 7. Austin Smotherman, SMU              70-71-73 = 214    John Oda, UNLV                      69-73-72 = 214    Connor Tendall, Maryland            74-68-72 = 214

Michigan Individuals

T13. Reed Hrynewich   71-76-71 = 217T29. Chris O'Neill    76-75-71 = 222T29. Brett McIntosh   74-74-74 = 222T50. Bryce Evon       79-71-77 = 227T54. Tom Swanson      78-76-74 = 228* * playing as individual

N O T E S

• Michigan earned its fifth top-five finish of the season. In addition to a fourth-place finish at the Kepler, U-M won the season-opening Wolverine Intercollegiate (Sept. 6-7); were the runner-up at the Big Ten Match Play Championships (Feb. 14-15) as well as the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate (March 6-7) and tied for third at the Windon Memorial Classic (Sept. 21-22).

• Kyle Mueller recorded U-M's lone eagle on the tournament on first hole of the final round. After striping a 264 drive on the par 4, 427-yard first hole, he used a nine-iron from 163 yards, knocking his shot over the flag stick and spinning it back and into the hole for the eagle.

• Kyle Mueller has finished as the top Wolverine in seventh of the 10 events this season. O'Neill has led in three events -- tying with Mueller at one event -- and Reed Hrynewich has led in one.

• With his start at the Kepler Intercollegiate, Chris O'Neill increased his consecutive-event played streak to 34 starts. He has yet to miss an event in three seasons.

• Chris O'Neill and Kyle Mueller are the only Wolverines to start all 10 events this season.

• Reed Hrynewich posted a season-best tie for 13th, topping his prior best of tying for 14th at the Puerto Rico Classic. It was second top 20 of the season and the fourth of his career.

• Bryce Evon started his third straight event for the Wolverines. Evon has played and started seven of 10 events on the season.

• Tom Swanson competed as an individual for the second time this season. Overall he has played in seven events with five starts.

Q U O T E S

Michigan Head Coach Chris Whitten
On getting a key top five finish at the Kepler Intercollegiate... "We felt like all the guys were playing well coming into the tournament. Most of them had not played this golf course before, but having been here several years ago, I felt it set up great for our team at really every part of the golf course. I just felt it was the right tournament at the right time for us. The first day didn't go as well as we hoped it would. Today we definitely saw some flash of what we are capable of and what we are going to plan on doing going forward."

On expanding upon why he felt playing the Scarlet Course was good for U-M ... "It is a course where you are going to hit driver off most of the tees and our team is going to be longer than almost every team we play on average. It's not just that you could hit driver, it's that you could hit driver and if it just happened to be a bit offline you would just have a couple of trees to deal with rather than a hazard or a total lost ball. The second part about our team is that we have the ability to be creative with our recovery shots. Basically, if we have the ability to get another shot a lot of times we can make something good out of it. We did some of that this weekend."

On the Wolverines turning up their play as the regular season closed ... "We have depth now. We have lots of guys capable of shooting under par rounds on hard golf courses. You know, it's been a long time since we had four guys under par at the same time and in an important round like we had today. We could have closed it out a little better today, but at one point today to be nine-under as a team on that golf course more than halfway through felt pretty good. We have to take something from that and keep building on it."

On moving towards postseason play and if the team is where he wants them to be ... "We always want to be better. The regular season is done and we hit a lot of our objectives. Now we go to the conference tournament and everyone knows that is an important event for us. However, we go into that with momentum. We go into that with a little bit of a record. We go into it with some strong finishes to stand on for confidence. We will just go and play and see how it stacks up. The guys should feel really good about themselves."

Communications Contact: Tom Wywrot (734) 763-4423