IU men's golf kicked off its spring season this weekend in the Big Ten Match Play Championship, and the Hoosiers got off to a lethargic start.
Iowa defeated IU on Friday, and the Hoosiers split a pair of matches Saturday. IU beat Nebraska in the morning match, 4-2, and lost to Ohio State in the afternoon, 4-1-1.
"Match play is a totally different animal," IU Coach Mike Mayer said. "But I didn't feel we competed as strongly as we should have and could have."
After dropping a 3-1-2 match to the Hawkeyes on Friday morning, the Hoosiers found themselves in the losers' bracket.
Junior Christian Fairbanks picked up the lone win for the Hoosiers on Friday in his match against Sam Meuret. Fairbanks and Meuret went back and forth over the back nine, but Fairbanks jumped in front late and grabbed the 2-up win for IU. Fairbanks only played in one tournament in the fall.
"He gave us just what we were looking for that first round," Mayer said. "We probably leaned on him a little bit too much. We were hoping he could be our secret weapon."
The Hoosiers needed him to be. Senior Andrew Havill lost his match to Ryoto Furuya on Friday by a 4 and 3 margin and freshman Brock Ochsenreiter dropped a 6 and 5 decision.
Junior Brendon Doyle’s match against Carson Schaake was tight throughout, with neither player having more than a 2-up lead. Schaake won the first hole and then went 2-up with a win on the third hole of the match. Doyle clawed back and went ahead one, but Schaake tied things up on 15 and the match ended in a draw.
Brown's route to halving his score against Alex Schaake was a bit different. Brown and Schaake battled back and forth throughout the match and Brown eventually tied it up on the 18th.
In the morning match against Nebraska, the Hoosiers took an early 2-0 lead thanks to an 8 and 6 win by Keegan Vea and a 6 and 5 win by Doyle. After the Huskers got one back to cut the IU lead to 2-1, the three remaining matches would come down to the final holes.
Ochsenreiter took an early lead in his match and never relinquished it. Both players parred the 17th hole to give Ochsenreiter the 2 and 1 win and put the Hoosiers ahead, 3-1.
Nebraska got its second win in the opening round against IU on Saturday, and in the afternoon match against Ohio State, the Buckeyes jumped out to early leads in three of the matches and easily won those to take a 3-0 lead.
"We've got some work to do," Mayer said. "We've got to put our nose to the grind stone, and I think we a have a much better idea of what we need to do and how we need to do it."
