The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB
Billy Hitchcock Invitational
Brown Fires 68, Helps UAB To Fifth At Hitchcock
4/10/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
April 10, 2005
AUBURN, Ala. - Junior Clark Brown matched his career-low with a four-under-par 68 in Sunday's final round of the 2005 Billy Hitchcock Intercollegiate Golf Tournament to lead UAB to a fifth place finish out of 12 teams in the field. Brown's season-low effort vaulted the Navarre, Fla., native to a tie for third place in the individual standings.
UAB, which was seventh on the team leaderboard after two rounds, shot a 294 team score in Sunday's third and final round. That number was only bettered on the day by No. 6 Auburn, which clinched the tournament's title with a nine-under-par 279 score for the day. Auburn's 861 took the tournament by 24 strokes. Memphis (885), Charlotte (890) and Ole Miss (892) finished ahead of UAB, which was just one stroke behind the Rebels at 893 for the tournament. The Blazers fired rounds of 299-300-294 for the event.
"I was very pleased with Clark's play and with our effort on Sunday," UAB head coach Alan Kaufman said. "We had a shot at finishing as high as third place coming into the day. We knocked a couple of folks off and moved up two spots from Saturday, so it was a nice effort. Hopefully, this will give us some momentum heading to the Conference tournament."
The Hitchcock Intercollegiate was UAB's final test before competing in the Conference USA Tournament on April 18-20 in Biloxi, Miss.
Brown tied for third with Jordan Dempsey of Ole Miss and Tyler McKeever of Auburn. His third round 68 tied Auburn's Lee Williams for low round of the day. Williams was the tournament's runner-up behind Memphis's Ian Rochester, who led wire-to-wire and finished the tournament with a five-under-par 211. Brown's 216 was just five shots off the lead and gave him a four-stroke improvement over each of the three rounds. He shot 76-72-68.
Senior Ryan Thomas notched another top-10 finish with a three-over-par 219 for the tournament. He finished ninth after rounds of 73-71-75. Sophomore Garrett Osborn's 73-75-76 gave him a 224 for the tournament and a tie for 20th place at eight-over. Chris Cousins finished with rounds of 77-83-75 (235, T-49th) and freshman Kaylor Timmons recorded rounds of 77-82-85 (244, T-62nd).
UAB finished eight shots ahead of South Alabama and Jacksonville State, which tied for sixth overall. The Blazers upset No. 17 Georgia State, which finished tied for eighth with Southeast Louisiana. Illinois, the College of Charleston and Mississippi State rounded out the field.
