The Southwestern men's and women's golf teams battled less-than-favorable conditions at the 2017 Iowa Central Invitational at Otter Creek Golf Course. Otter Creek will host the 2017 Regional Championship for the women later this month.

According to Spartan Head Coach Doug North, both the men's and women's teams had positives, but neither finished as planned.

"Everybody had stretches of great holes, there would just be a big number in there," commented North. "I think for our first tournament of the year, we made some first tournament mistakes against solid competition."

The Spartan women will return to Otter Creek in a few weeks to compete for the opportunity to travel to Duluth, GA. The National Championship will be held at Chateau Elan Golf Club in the southern Georgia community. Out of the 61 ladies who competed this weekend, only 20 were at the community college level. The Spartans were led by sophomore and consistent team-leader Evy Wells from Knoxville.

"Evy once again stepped up and led the team," said North. "Evy had some demons from regionals last year and she slayed that beast. There were some tough holes where she took some big numbers last year. Those holes were a strong point this go-round. It is really good seeing that progression!"

Wells shot a 97 on day one and followed that up with a 51 on day two. With rain and wind moving in, the tournament shortened to 27 holes, with only nine being played on Sunday. Wells was tied for 43rd after day one and climbed the leaderboard to finish tied for 41st at the conclusion on Sunday.

"I know you cannot eliminate competition, but if we look at the girls in our regional tournament, we fared well," explained North. "Evy finished 11th, Sydney Goltl finished 13th, Camryn Somers 14th, Brooke Decker 17th and Courtney Clark 18th. Those are good finishes against our direct competition!"

Goltl, an Omaha native, finished overall in a tie for 44th. Somers, from Creston, finished at 49th. Decker, a sophomore from Muscatine, rounded out the fourth team score with a 56th place finish, and right behind was Clark, from Osceola, in a tie for 57th.

"This was our first tournament with a team score since I have taken over," exclaimed North. "We beat the team that Grand View brought, which is exciting for the girls. We played head-to-head against them on Sunday and came away with our first team victory!"

On the men's side of the tournament, the Spartans were led by two-year starter Ben Sandquist. Sandquist, a sophomore from Adel, finished Saturday tied for 28th, but climbed a few spots and finished tied for 23rd. Freshman transfer from New Zealand Hamish Brown finished second for the Spartans in a tie for 35th place. In his second tournament start, Wes Davis, freshman from Fontanelle, finished tied for 37th. Finishing out the team scoring was Jared Baier, of Guthrie Center, with a 42nd place finish and Creston native Christian Groumoutis, sophomore, with a tie for 48th.

North said there was plenty of competition at the two-year and four-year levels on both the men's and women's side.

"This is a similar situation as the women's side, you compare us to the JUCO schools in attendance and we finished toward the middle of the pack," stated North. "We look to compete against everybody, but this was our first tournament and it was a positive experience."

On the women's side, the tournament was won by 34 strokes by a solid William Penn team. Taking home the individual trophy was Jaime Bellingham from DMACC, a high school teammate of Southwestern's Brown from New Zealand. On the men's side, Iowa Central edged out Ottawa by three strokes to take home the team victory. Jacob Baker from Iowa Lakes took home the individual trophy by a narrow margin.

The Spartans next competition is the Men's Regional Preview at Veenker Golf Course in Ames. Both the men and women will compete on April 14th. The Spartans have just under two weeks to iron out what went wrong before they are in the bulk of their schedule, as the teams will wrap up regular-season play on April 25.