- Freshman Sam Vertanen of Ames leads DMACC with a two-over-par 73 and finishes sixth
- CoFR Joe Dean of Cedar Falls and Tyler Sansgaard of Nevada tie for seventh with scores of 74
- CoFR Ryan Nichols of Ogden ties for 18th with a 77
The DMACC men's golf team opened the 2021 fall season with a third-place finish in the Iowa Central Fall Kickoff August 30 at the Fort Dodge Country Club in Fort Dodge.
Iowa Central Community College (ICCC) took the team championship with an 18-hole score of 282. Barton County Community College (BCCC) finished second at 291 and DMACC was third with a 301. ICCC's Michel Van Zijl and BCCC's Peeranat Suporn shared medalist honors with four-under-par 67s.
DMACC was led by freshman Sam Vertanen of Ames with a two-over-par 73. Vertanen finished sixth in the individual competition. Covid-19 freshmen (CoFR) Joe Dean of Cedar Falls and Tyler Sansgaard of Nevada tied for seventh with rounds of 74 and CoFR Ryan Nichols of Ogden tied for 18th with a 77.
Other DMACC results saw CoFR Logan Barnes of Altoona and freshman Ethan Gillis of Pickering, Ontario, Canada, tie for 23rd and CoFR Jack West of Winterset and freshman Hogan Henrich of Newell tied for 30th. Barnes and Gillis posted rounds of 80 and West and Henrich turned in 83s.
"We saw some good things," DMACC men's golf coach Chris Seaboch said. "I could tell the kids were anxious and nervous and we didn't play up to our abilities, but we've had only two practices before our first meet. We normally don't play this early in the year and wait until after Labor Day (to start the fall season), but because Iowa Central's meet was first and was so close (to the DMACC Boone Campus) we decided to play."
Seaboch said he didn't have a lot of expectations going into the tournament and wanted his players to just play and enjoy the day.
"We've haven't had any time to work on any areas of their games so it really was just kind of a blank canvas for us," Seaboch said.
As with the DMACC women's program, Seaboch will use the fall season to analyze players' games and see what areas need to be worked on during the winter. He took seven players to the Iowa Central tournament and said he will take just six or seven to the remainder of the fall tournament, meaning players will use practice days to play their way into the top six or seven.
"I see our top five kind of rotating during these early meets because I like to give everybody a chance to compete for the top five," Seaboch said. "Some may react differently to how they are playing within the team and if they have to post a team score, some people rise to the occasion and some people struggle. We've got some tremendous players and great kids in the classroom."
The DMACC men's golf team will play in the NIACC Invite Sept. 7 at Mason City.