The Sacramento State men’s golf team won its first tournament last weekend at the Visit Stockton Pacific Invite at the Stockton Country Club.

The team played great golf throughout the tournament finishing with a score of 859, but it was the second round where they really shined.

Finishing the second round with an overall score of 271 in the Stockton tournament, the team broke its previous record of 272 for strokes in a single round, which came in the previous tournament at the Nick Watney Invitational in Fresno, California.

Sac State Coach Kamden Brakel knows his team will persevere after a struggle in the first round.

“The guys are really good at coming back,” Brakel said. “[They] learn from the first round especially. I can’t put my finger on why the second round tends to be our best round and we seem to start out slow and then build momentum. The guys finish well in all the rounds and always find a way to squeeze in a couple birdies late, which is big.”

Brakel said preparation, practice and talent were the key factors that led the team to victory.

“The guys on the team have been pushing each other all season,” Brakel said. “So I am not surprised that we got a win because they have shown that they can play at a really high level and shoot some really good scores…the team just came together and were resilient.”

Senior Taylor Knoll finished the tournament in second place out of the 88 golfers with an overall score of 210 and shot a career-best 63 in the record-breaking second round.

Knoll started the second round with four birdies and a bogey on the front nine and had five birdies and four pars on the back nine, finishing eight under par.

“A 63 is pretty fantastic,” Brakel said. “He just redeemed himself after his first round; he was struggling a little bit. He just has that fight in him and loves competition and you can see that in every tournament that we play, he has that fire in him. A 63 is a great round and he made a lot of birdies… there’s not much you can say about a 63 except ‘wow.’ It’s a great round and I’m happy for him.”

Knoll played well throughout the tournament, showing that he was capable of clutch play. In the second round he was able to bounce back from an out of bounds shot and in the third and final round at the final hole, he holed a 7-foot birdie putt that clinched the lead for Sac State, putting them one stroke ahead of Long Beach State.

“I was pretty nervous,” Knoll said. “But once I got past five under I just let it go and just tried to keep making birdies because I played poorly the first round and I wanted to get myself back into the tournament. I knew I had to keep making birdies, I wasn’t really thinking about that round I was thinking about where I stood in the tournament.”

Senior Owen Taylor said that the second round, with Knoll’s play as well as the team overall, was a major contributor to the win in Stockton.

“Our second round put us in contention,” Taylor said. “It put us in the lead and that’s not something that we’ve done in the last couple of years. We [have] been leading by a lot, but we haven’t really had a close call like that with Long Beach State or any other team. Just being able to go out there and take the momentum from the second round and go to the third round and understand that we are capable is important. Knowing that we have five guys that can count their scores and having confidence in not only Taylor [Knoll], but Aaron [Beverly] and Rob [Parden] and having confidence in our team [is key].”

This win marks the first for the team this year and is also the first win for coach Brakel as head coach of the Sac State men’s golf team. This win was the first win since March 9 of last year at the Sacramento State Intercollegiate Tournament in Sacramento.

The team will try to carry the momentum from the win in Stockton to the Ka’anapali Collegiate Classic in Maui, Hawaii this Friday through Sunday.

“[The win] is a confidence booster for sure,” Brakel said. “It’s good to know that they can do it, win a tournament. It gives you that ultimate confidence and when they are in that position again they will be more comfortable and will know what it takes to win.”