Indiana Drops Afternoon Match To Minnesota

Friday, February 12

Palm Coast, Fla.

1:15 PM

Indiana University

Minnesota

2/12/2016 9:09:00 PM | Men's Golf

PALM COAST, Florida – Coming off an exciting win over No. 20 Penn State in the morning, the Indiana men's golf team lost to Minnesota, 4-2, in the afternoon match at the 2016 Big Ten Match Play at Hammock Beach Resort. Despite the two-point deficit, the match was much closer than that, with Minnesota winning two matches by a 2&1 score and one match by a 1-up margin.

Redshirt Freshman Jack Sparrow continued to play extremely steady golf and was rewarded with a commanding 5&4 win in his afternoon match against Matt Rachey. Sparrow played 15 holes against Rachey and carded 14 pars and one bogey.

Junior Andrew Havill, coming off the clinching match in the morning session, carried that momentum into his afternoon match and jumped out to a 3-up lead through three holes against Justin Doeden. Havill played well enough to keep Doeden at bay, never allowing him to get within 2-up before he closed out the 3&2 win with a par on the 16^th hole of the match.

Keegan Vea started his afternoon round on the par 5 18^th hole and opened with an eagle to take the 1-up lead. He went on to extend his lead to 3-up through seven holes before his opponent, Runar Arnorsson, won three of the next five holes to square the match. Havill went 1-down after a bogey on is 13^th hole but squared the match again the very next hole. A bogey on the 15^th hole of the match put Havill 1-down again and he was unable to get back to even from there, giving the Arnorsson the 1-up win over Havill.

Jake Brown, who also began his round on the 18^th hole, posted a birdie to take the quick 1-up lead. After Brown and Minnesota's Tom Vining carded matching bogeys on hole 1, Vining won the second hole to even the match and then went 1-up with a par on the fourth hole. From there, he was able to maintain his advantage the rest of the way and handed Brown the 2&1 loss.

Senior Max Kollin never held the lead against Grady Meyer and was only able to win three holes on his way to a 2&1 loss. But Kollin was never down by more than one hole until the final hole of the match, when Grady clinched it with a bogey on the par 4 14^th hole.

Indiana will play Rutgers in the final round robin match of the event. Then teams will be paired according to their results from the three round robin matches and put into matches that will determine first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth places.

To follow all of the live scoring on Saturday, go to BirdieFire.com.

Friday Afternoon Results vs. Minnesota
Minnesota Def. Indiana, 4-2
Tom Vining (MINN) def. Jake Brown (IU), 2&1
Runar Arnorsson (MINN) def. Keegan Vea (IU), 1-up
Jack Sparrow (IU) def. Matt Rachey (MINN), 5&4
Jon Du Toit (MINN) def. Brendon Doyle (IU), 3&1
Grady Meyer (MINN) def. Max Kollin (IU), 2&1
Andrew Havill (IU) def. Justin Doeden (MINN), 3&2