Less than a week after a back injury forced Brandon Matthews to withdraw from the Hartford Hawk Invitational, the senior golfer shot a two-over 146 to finish 10th at the Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge.
Matthews was eight shots behind the University of Rhode Island’s Bill Walthouse, who won the Challenge with a six-under par 138.
Matthews, who shot a pair of one-over par 73s over the two day tournament, said he was not fully healthy this weekend.
“I could still feel it,” Matthews said. “ I couldn’t make any hard swings or anything. But it was definitely better.”
As a team, Temple finished fifth out of 13 schools with a 28-over par 604.
Freshman Sam Soeth, who shot six-over par 150 and tied for 17th, was the only other Owl to finish in the Top 20 in the 77 player field.
“Bottom line we need to get better,” Matthews said. These scores that we’re shooting aren’t good. We not even close to contending in any tournaments.”
Sophomore Evan Thornton had the third best performance out of the Owls that competed in Vermont, shooting a 10 over-par 154 and finishing in a tie for 32nd.
Thornton was pleased with the team’s play after a last place finish at the Hartford Hawk Invitational Sept. 21-22.
“I’m just happy we improved from last time,” Thornton said. “Coming forward I think we’re in a much better place now. I’m excited to see what we can do for the rest of the year.”
Thornton said coach Brian Quinn is trying to keep the team focused on short-term goals like continuing to improve upon its scores from the previous event and not looking too far down the road.
“Coach realizes that we have a pretty young team and his goal is just to get us prepared for each tournament,” Thornton added.
Greg Frank can be reached at Greg.Frank@temple.edu or on Twitter @g_frank6.
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