The Chico State Men’s Golf team traveled north to compete in the Western Washington Invitational hosted at the Bellingham Golf and Country Club in Bellingham, Washington. They finished the invitational strong in sixth place out of the 17 teams competing. 

As a team, Chico State finished the first two rounds in eighth place after early struggles on the course. Sophomore Dakota Ochoa was the only player from Chico State who went under-par on the 72 par course in the first 36 holes of play. But, after a successful third round by all the players, the Wildcats climbed up the leaderboard and finished in sixth place.

“After our first day, I think all of us realized that we are much better than how we played and just a couple of bad swings got to us,” Ochoa said. “There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to play good in that final round.”

Ochoa led the Wildcats in player standings at the end of the invitational, finishing tied for ninth place in the 91-player tournament grid, shooting a 71 in his first and final rounds.

“My game has been feeling really good and trending in the right direction, the confidence I had at the end of last year and all summer knowing I can go low just filled over to this year,” Ochoa said.

After a successful campaign last season, junior Tyler Ashman started out the invitational with faults in his play. After having a troubling first round, he was 6 over-par and shot a 78. However, on the last day of the tournament he had the lowest score of 68, going 4 under-par. 

“Day one was one of those days where it seemed like nothing went my way, I couldn’t get a putt to drop … but I knew I was still hitting the ball well,” Ashman said. “Going into day two I just told myself to not change anything and just trust my game, and it ended up working out.”

Alongside Ashman, both sophomore Mark Noonan and freshman Naoki Easterday all finished the invitational tied for 31st place. 

“Since it was the first tournament of the season, I think we were all just a little off with everything on the first day,” Easterday said. “But on the second day, we were more committed to our shots and minimized mental errors.”

Noonan played consistently throughout his three rounds of play, averaging 73.33 strokes per round in the two-day tournament. With his successful start this season, he has improved on  his 77.2 stroke average from the 2021-22 season.

“The most important thing this weekend was to be consistent, I wanted to build some confidence going into the rest of the season and wanted to be able to trust some aspects of my game more so than in the past,” Noonan said. “I feel like I was able to do that, but I still definitely have some things to work on.” 

For Easterday, the Western Washington Invitational was his first glimpse at college golf, having a combined total of 219 strokes in the three rounds of the invitational.

“I felt like it went pretty good for my first tournament, there’s definitely room for improvement for me as a team,” Easterday said. “I think our main goal is to reduce the amount of mistakes we make out there.”

As the team pushed through early season-scrambles on the first day, they finished the invitational with optimism for the rest of the season.

“It obviously wasn’t exactly what we wanted, but we came out of it with things to work on and things to build off of going into our home tournament,” Ashman said.

Chico State Men’s Golf will tee up again this season at the annual Wildcat Classic hosted by Chico State at the Peach Tree Golf and Country Club in Marysville on Oct. 10 through the 11th.

For more information about all Chico State Athletics, visit the Wildcats website.

Alejandro Mejia Mejia can be reached at [email protected] or @MeijaMeijaAlex on Twitter.