Cougars struggle after rain delay at NCAA West Regional

AUBURN -- After being forced to play two rounds on Friday because of a Thursday rain delay, the BYU men's golf team struggled on the first day of the NCAA West Regional at Washington National golf course.

The Cougars hurt themselves with a first-round 317 in the morning, but then rebounded with an 11-over-par 299 in the second round. The 317 first round total was the Cougars worst round of the season. After two rounds the Cougars are in 21st place out of 27 teams

Then Cougars were led by Sophomore Greg Machtaler who shot a second round 69 to vault himself into a tie for 12th place. Machtaler's 69 was the third best round on the day among the 27 teams competing on the tough par 72 Washington National course. He is also in the running to be among the six individuals invited to advance to the NCAA Championships if BYU does not qualify.

Oscar Alvarez was the other bright spot for the Cougars as he shot a second-round 75 and sits in a tie for 72nd at eight-over-par.

With only the top 10 teams advancing, the Cougars will be hard pressed to move on to the NCAA Championships as they trail 10th-place San Diego State by 22 strokes. Besides San Diego State, who tied with the Cougars for second place at the 2003 Mountain West Conference Championships, two other MWC school are also among the the top 10. New Mexico is third place while UNLV is in fourth both trailing leader UCLA. New Mexico's Michael Letzig, the 2003 Mountain West Conference Player of the Year, it the atop the leaderboard at seven-under-par.

Saturday's final round will begin at 8 a.m. and live scoring will be posted on the internet at www.golfstat.com

BYU Individual Scores
t12th  Greg Machtaler      76-69--145
t72nd  Oscar Alvarez       77-75--152
t114th Daniel Summerhays   84-76--160
t120th Ron Harvey          80-82--162
t126th Jared Overton       84-79--163