SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The Pepperdine men's golf team's 2022-23 season came to a close at Grayhawk Golf Club on Tuesday afternoon, as the Waves fell 3-2 to Georgia Tech in the quarterfinal of the NCAA Championships.
The match was close from beginning to end and the Waves took the first two points as
Derek Hitchner dominated his opponent after leading by four on his 15
th hole.
Sam Choi excited onlookers as he closed out his match by leading by two after his 17
th. Georgia Tech then answered with a pair of match wins to tie things up and put all eyes on graduate
Roberto Nieves who had just tied his match up on his 15
th hole played.
He battled through the final three holes of regulation, though the opposition would putt in a seven-footer on the 19
th hole to birdie for the 3-2 Georgia Tech team win.
Pepperdine was the only school competing in match play that is not in a Power Five conference. The Waves will end with a fifth-place finish in the tournament and it's the program's sixth top-10 finish all-time. The Waves have reached the NCAA finals for the 13
th time overall and advanced to match play for the third-consecutive year – a first in Pepperdine program history.
PLAYER SCORES
- Sam Choi (PEPP) def. Connor Howe (GT), 2&1 – Choi (Anaheim, Calif./New Mexico) fell behind after the second hole as the opposition birdied a par-five. A bogey on the 15th would put the Wave behind another point, but that would not be the end as the graduate student capitalized on a bogey from Yellow Jackets to start closing the gap on the 17th. He then birdied the third and fourth holes, first to tie, and then to take over the lead by one. He capitalized on another bogey from his opponent on the seventh to gain a two-point advantage that he would ride out to the finish for the second Waves point of the day.
- Derek Hitchner def. Christo Lamprecht (GT), 4&3 – Hitchner (Minneapolis, Minn./The Blake School) fell behind as the Yellow Jackets birdied the first hole to pull ahead, but he kept his composure on the next hole to tie things up. The Wave then birdied the 12th and 13th holes to pull ahead by two. Georgia Tech picked up a point on the 14th to come within one, but the graduate student stayed composed and confident pulling ahead with back-to-back points – a birdie on the 17th and par on the 18th to pull ahead by three. Hitchner was not done as well, as he birdied hole two to extend his lead. The opposition took one off him on the fourth, but he birdied the par-three five hole to snag his four-point lead back and finished on his 15th hole of the day.
- Bartley Forrester (GT) def. Luke Gifford, 2&1 – Gifford (Boca Raton, Fla./South Florida) fell behind on his second hole and trailed by three after his fifth, but he stayed strong and rallied with a birdie on the 15th and capitalized on a pair of Georgia Tech bogeys on the 17th and 18th to tie it up. He remained tied through three more holes, but birdies from the opposition on the third and eighth holes would end the match and give GT their second point of the match.
- Hiroshi Tai (GT) def. Roberto Nieves, 19 holes – Nieves (Miami, Fla./Delaware) gained the first advantage after maintaining par while Georgia Tech struggled, pulling ahead by three after four holes. The opposition was able to tie the match before the turn with a par on 17 and even pull ahead on the first hole. Nieves tied the score on the fourth and then fought off another point from the Yellow Jackets to sit tied on the 15th hole of action (hole six). The duo went shot-for-shot and were tied after the regulation 18-holes, forcing the tiebreak off hole 10 with the match on the line. Georgia Tech was able to putt it in for the win.
- Ross Steelman (GT) def. William Mouw, 5&4 – Mouw (Chino, Calif./Ontario Christian HS) fell down four points in the first five holes played, facing the front-runner through all four days of the NCAA stroke play rounds and eventual second-place finisher from Georgia Tech. He maintained the following few holes, but Steelman took another point on the 17th. It would be a lead the senior would be unable to overcome, eventually falling on the 14th hole of action for the Yellow Jackets first point of the day.
