By Kasey McMillian
Reporter
Baylor men’s golf team finished 10th at the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate on Sunday in Palm Desert, Calif. Baylor was 1-over through two rounds but shot a final round 292 to finish the tournament with 5-over 869, and is now ranked No. 29 nationally.
No. 14 UNLV defeated previous champion Texas Tech by seven strokes, shooting a 20-under 844.
Baylor senior Lorenzo Scotto tied for 35th overall at 2-over 218 and freshman Mikkel Bjerch-Andresen tied for 52nd overall at 6-over 222. Redshirt freshman Niclas Mansson followed at 59th at 7-over 223 and junior Ryan O’Rear tied for 75th at 10-over 226.
“We struggled all weekend, we had a lot of 3-putts and just didn’t play well,” head coach Greg Priest said in a press release. “Joakim [Mikkelsen] played really [well]. He kept getting better and better with each round and put himself in contention to win it.”
Senior Joakim Mikkelsen finished with a 4-under 68, the second lowest score in the final round. He finished the weekend in a three-way tie for second (6-under 210) behind Kevin Penner of UNLV with 7-under 209. Mikkelsen has had six top-10 finishes this season and is ranked fifth in Baylor’s program history.
“He’s got a lot of drive in him,” Priest said. “He wants to be successful, and he’s proven that he wants to be the guy that you can rely on whenever it gets in a tough situation, so I mean he’s by far stepping up to being the guy we need on this team to take us where we need to go.”
Baylor will next compete in the Border Olympics March 16-17 at Laredo.