The North Dakota State’s Men’s Golf team would head to Goodyear, Arizona, to participate in the Loyola Intercollegiate. The three-day tournament, hosted by Loyola Maryland, would see the Bison finish 9th out of 19 participating schools. NDSU would finish behind rival South Dakota, finishing 6th overall as a team.
NDSU sent six golfers to Arizona as independent players: Sean Moore, Ian Simonich, Rylin Petry, Jake Skarperud, Josh Galvin, and Max Wilson. All the Bison golfers finished in the top 70 of the 116 participating players.
The highest-finishing Bison would be Ian Simonich, who would finish tied for 10th with two others and have a score of -6 across the three day tournament. On the opening day and the second, Simonich would shoot one under par before having an absolutely amazing final round as he would shoot -4 to jump almost 10 places on the last day and clinch a top-ten finish. He would also be third in pars in the entire tournament, tallying 38 pars, 10 birdies, and one eagle. Simonich would also dominate on par threes as he shot -1 on all par threes.
Rylin Petry would finish tied for 41st with multiple golfers as he would finish the early week tournament +1. Petry would start shooting one over on Sunday, then rebound on the final two days to shoot even. While unable to improve his score, Petry would do a fantastic job holding his position with a total of 30 pars and a team-leading 12 birdies. Petry would struggle in the short game with a total of +4 on par threes but would be elite in the long game with a -4 total on all par fives.
Next, Jake Skarperud and Josh Galvin would tie for 64th overall as the pair would both individually shoot +5. Starting with Skarperud, he would struggle on the first two days with scores of +4 and +3. Like Ian Simonich, Skarperud would bounce back on the final day with a -2. Skarperud would join three other Bison with 33 total pars and would also tie Ian Simonich for 10 birdies. Skarperud would shoot +6 on all par 3s and +2 on par fours but would shoot -3 on all par fives as the Bison would dominate the top of the charts in the long ball game.
Josh Galvin would start the tournament with a -2 but would see a drop off over the next two days as he would finish with a +4 and a +3. Galvin would be second on the Bison leaderboard for Pars as he would shoot 36 of them over the three days and shoot eigth birdies. Galvin would shoot +3 on par threes and be at the bottom of the Bison leaderboard for the par fives, as he would be the only teammate who would not shoot under par at +2.
Sean Moore would wrap things up at 69th for the Bison team members as +6. On the first and third days, Moore shot +1 but would struggle in the middle with a +4 to tank his score. Moore would shoot 33 pars, nine birdies, and -3 on all par 5s.
As an independent, Max Wilson technically finished third for NDSU, placing 54th overall with a score of +3. Wilson shot +3 on the first day, and like Rylin Petry, he ended the tournament with two days of even golf. Wilson shot 33 pars to fit right in with most of his teammates. He also made eight birdies and one eagle. Wilson dominated the long game like many other Bison, scoring -7 on all par fives.
NDSU Men’s Golf will be back in action on March 9th in Oregon at the Bandon Dunes Championship.