Home › Sports › LoboZone
Men's golf: Lobos land spot in NCAA tourney
Lobos in NCAA
What: Men's Golf NCAA Championships
Where: Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Williamsburg, Va.
When: Today through Saturday, with teams playing 18 holes daily
Lobos lineup: Senior Charlie Beljan, junior Robb Bierbaum, sophomores Nick Geyer and Steve Saunders, and freshman Kyle Nielsen
Field: 30 teams, including Golfweek.com's top five national picks: Georgia, Stanford, Lamar, Alabama and Oklahoma State
Results: Live updates available at GolfStat.com and GoLobos.com.
RELATED STORIES
- Women's golf: Unity plays key role for Lobos in NCAAs
- UNM sports roundup: Solomon captures gold for Lobos
Related Links
More LoboZone
- Richard Stevens: Faces I'll remember are the smallest ones
- Michael Garcia: Here's to you, athletes, coaches and friends. These memories - and lessons - will last forever.
- Tribune sports: Five faves
MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES
-
ABQTrib.com to remain available
08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008 -
Congressman is indicted
08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Series of attacks target Green Zone
08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Iran is defying U.N., agency says
08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Waterboarding approval probed
08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008
TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*
- Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
- Is Rome Burning?
- Ominous Skies
- The Road to Invalidation
- Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”
*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.
STORY TOOLS
SHARE THIS STORY [?]
There were times this season the Lobos looked greener than the golf courses.
But the New Mexico men's golf team figured out how to accentuate its talent rather than inexperience.
Instead of playing in summer tournaments and enjoying a mellow off season, the Lobos earned a trip to the NCAA national championships that began this morning at Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Williamsburg, Va. It is a four-round event, with teams playing 18-holes daily through Saturday.
"Our goal is to play our game and execute as well as we can," head coach Glen Millican said. "If we can just stay focused and just worry about ourselves, we should be competitive."
Millican, who has now taken teams to the NCAA championships in five of his six seasons at UNM, said it took a lot of trial and error to get this year's team to the biggest tournament of the year.
"There were a lot of ups and downs this season," he said. "There were times when we showed exactly how young we are and other times when we showed how much talent we had. I had a lot of different lineups, and it seemed like this group was finally the one that really worked."
Senior Charlie Beljan -- the Mountain West Conference men's golfer of the year and who is ranked No. 11 nationally by GolfWeek.com -- leads the Lobos' lineup.
Junior Robb Bierbaum, sophomores Nick Geyer and Steve Saunders, and freshman Kyle Nielsen round out UNM's roster for championship competition.
The group seemed unlikely to make it to the national championships after finishing sixth at the Mountain West Conference championships.
The team pulled together at the NCAA regionals last week at the Karsten Course in Tempe, Ariz., finishing eighth by shooting a season-low 833 and 31 under par during three rounds. It was the fourth best 54-hole finish in school history, and all five Lobos set or tied individual career lows.
UNM was the only unranked team and sole school from the Mountain West Conference to advance to the NCAA championships.
"If we can duplicate our performance in Arizona, I think we'll be in really good shape," Millican said.
Regardless of the Lobos' performance this week, Millican said the future looks bright for the program.
The team will lose a strong leader in Beljan, but four other members of the NCAA squad will return. The Lobos also boast a strong group of reserves.
"You can't beat the experience these guys got this year," Millican said. "We're going to be set for the next few years."
Millican is continuing the program's tradition of making strides with New Mexico flavor on its roster.
Saunders is a La Cueva graduate who was on three Class 5A state championship teams. Valley High grad Alex Zannes, Eldorado grad Brandon Putnam and Clovis grad Guillermo Chavez are reserves on the Lobos' roster.
"We've had some great New Mexico high school golfers around for a long time, but it's always nice when those guys are playing well," Millican said. "This year, Albuquerque fans can pull for both the whole the team and for Steve. I'm hoping we all do a good job this week."
