Western New Mexico surges to second straight conference title.
Jon Rizzi | Colorado AvidGolfer
With Colorado schools comprising eight of the ten teams in the field at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Men’s Golf Championships, odds certainly favored a victorious team from the Centennial State.
Western New Mexico beat the odds.
The Mustangs won the three-round NCAA Division II RMAC tournament—held April 20-21 at the Golf Club of Estrella in Goodyear, Arizona—by five shots over Colorado School of Mines.
Going into the last round, the Orediggers, behind sophomore Nick Berry’s second-round 64, held a six-shot lead over Western New Mexico.
Berry, however, struggled during the final round, carding a 79, while teammate Conrad Smith put up a 78.
Meanwhile, Western New Mexico’s Harry Wetton shot a 70 and the team combined for a 19-over 296, while Mines came in at 307, finishing one shot ahead of Colorado Christian University.
Berry and Wetton shared individual medalist honors with Colorado Christian’s Nathaniel Goddard. All three shot a one-over 217 on the 7,017-yard course.
Wetton hails from the United Kingdom (Bedford, England), as do three of the four other members of Western New Mexico’s team. In fact, all but one player on coach Kent Beatty’s seven-man squad —Derek Pareles from Deming, N.M.— are from the UK.
The victory marks the team from Silver City’s second consecutive RMAC men’s golf crown and automatically qualifies them into the NCAA West/South Central Super Regional May 4-6 in Vallejo, Calif., at the Hiddenbrooke Golf Course.
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