Andy Bonar
The Wittenberg men's golf team put the wraps on a solid 2004
season with a fourth-place finish at the North Coast Athletic
Conference Tournament, which was hosted by Ohio Wesleyan at Dornoch
Golf Club.
The three teams that finished ahead of Wittenberg in the final
standings are all ranked in the top-20 nationally, and all three
will be making their second straight appearance in the NCAA
Division III Championships next week.
The Tigers gave nationally ranked Ohio Wesleyan, Allegheny and
Denison a scare, however, finishing the first day on top of the
tightly bunched standings by one stroke. But on Day 2, the young
Tigers, who counted scores from a junior, two sophomores and a
freshman, couldn't maintain the pace and slipped back to fourth
place.
Junior Andy Bonar (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster)
proved his mettle once again, finishing a career-best third in the
championship tournament to claim his second straight first-team
All-NCAC award. He carded a two-day total of 151 to finish four
strokes behind the tournament winner.
Freshman Scott Aker (Springfield, Ohio/Shawnee),
the co-medalist a week earlier in the Ohio Wesleyan Strimer
Invitational on the same course, finished 12th in the NCAC
Tournament with a 158. That finish was good for Honorable Mention
All-NCAC honors.
Rounding out the scoring for the Tigers were sophomores
Kristopher Schmelzer (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster)
with a 160 and Clinton Anderson (Mechanicsburg,
Ohio/Mechanicsburg) with a 161. Schmelzer finished 14th,
which qualifies for Honorable Mention All-NCAC, and Anderson, who
was a second-team All-NCAC honoree in 2003 after finishing 10th,
came in 16th in 2004. Senior Adam Knowlton (Springfield,
Ohio/Shawnee) was the Tigers' fifth golfer, and he
concluded his career with a 174, good for 37th place.