After winning the Competitor's Cup the past three years, the cup went to the Rams as the Bruins fell 14-6 to Columbia International University in this year's Competitor's Cup competition to wrap up their Spring season.
The two schools played a Ryder Cup style tournament over the course of two days at Spring Valley Golf Course. From Columbia, South Carolina, the two-day tournament got underway Monday morning with four four-ball matches in the morning followed by four foursome (alternate shot) matches in the afternoon. On each hole, each team counted the lowest score, and the team whose player has the lowest score won the hole, receiving a full point. If the low scores were tied at the hole, half a point was given to each team.
The Bruins found themselves in a hole after day one of the tenth annual Competitor's Cup. The team lost 4-1 in the morning four-ball matches followed by another 4-1 result in the afternoon foursome matches.
It would take eight points on day two for the Bruins to total the 10 points needed for them to retain the Cup.
"Realistically, we knew it was highly improbable for us to do this, but we set our line-up on day two to give it our best shot," said Head Coach Denny Scott.
Against CIU's most experiences golfers, Dakota Holt went out and won his match two and one. Throughout the competition, Holt came in clutch for the Bruins winning all three of his matches and scoring half of the team's total points.
After being three down through fourteen holes, Brandon Autry made an amazing comeback in his singles match as he won each of the final four holes and finished one up. Peter Zhong took his match to the 18th hole winning one up and Bryce Coursen finished his match on the 17th hole winning three and one. Freshman, Luke Jett kept it close throughout the round as he took his singles match to the final hole losing one down.
The team was competitive in most of the singles matches, but in the end fell a bit short.
"Congrats to CIU. They have a deep roster and a very experienced team, and we benefited greatly from the competition," said Scott. "The fellowship we share with them in "striving together" for the Cup is a great example of competitive partnership. The Competitor's Cup trophy has the Bible verse reference Philippians 1:27 on the front to remind us of this principle."
He continued saying, "the experience our young team gained from this year's Cup will definitely help us to set new goals for next season, to work hard to improve, and to return the Cup back to BJU next year."
