Facing off against some of the country’s best teams at the Mason Rudolph Championship, Ball State faced the toughest challenge of its season in Franklin, Tennessee.
A favorable opening fell flat as the competition progressed, with the Cardinals’ top golfers facing major inconsistency throughout the three-day event.
“To have the opportunity to compete here and to do it against this kind of field is definitely a privilege,” head coach Mike Fleck said. “Unfortunately for us, we picked a bad week to have a bad week.”
Shining in round one, sophomore Carter Smith was the top example of the Cardinals’ conflict with consistency. Smith started the event with one of the best opening-day scores, finishing in 5th place individually. The following days, however, saw the sophomore’s scores skid, placing him in 51st place by the competition's conclusion.
With only one competition separating Ball State from the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Championship, the Cardinals did see a bright spot.
Junior Braxton Kuntz, who earned the title of MAC Golfer of the Week this past week, counted three quality scores on each day of the Mason Rudolph Championship. Kuntz finished the event as Ball State’s top individual performer, despite being placed last in their lineup to start the event.
“He was consistent,” Fleck said. “He has shown great promise in several events, but consistency was something that he was missing. He was able to connect on that this week and put three competitive scores on the board.”
Ball State’s scoring was rounded out by freshman Alec Cesare and juniors Ali Khan and Kash Bellar. Cesare, who started the weekend fourth in Ball State’s lineup, finished third in scoring after a solid round-two performance of 72 (1-over-par). Khan and Bellar both finished near the bottom of the event’s individual leaderboards, struggling to maintain quality counting scores across the three days of competition.
“We need our top guys to show up,” Fleck said. “We can’t have two of our go-to guys finish in the bottom spots. For us to be the team that we want to be, it needs to be a complete team effort, and we didn’t get that this week at all.”
Ball State men’s golf will return on April 20 for its final competition of the season ahead of the MAC Championships as the Cardinals head to Champaign, Illinois, for the Fighting Illini Spring Invite.
Contact Nick Shelton with comments at nicholas.shelton@bsu.edu or on X @NickS9954.
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