FAYETTEVILLE -- Fans of the No. 1 Oklahoma State golf team made their growing presence felt on Day 3 of the NCAA men's golf championships at the Blessings Golf Club.
The orange-and-black clad fans ringed the 18th green and cheered shots for all the incoming players from the morning wave Sunday, but they got especially revved up for their conquering Cowboys.
After sophomore Matthew Wolff made a 3-footer for par on 18 to conclude a round of 2-under 70 for the 54-hole lead, a fan shouted "One more year!" to the No. 1 player in the college game.
Moments after sophomore Austin Eckroat in the anchor position made a 15-foot birdie on 18 to complete the team's 2-under round, another chimed in, "How about them Cowboys?" to spark a round of applause.
Another fine day for Oklahoma State gave the Cowboys a team score of 12-under par, 25 strokes better than their closest pursuers -- No. 5 Texas and No. 10 Stanford -- and virtually sealed the No. 1 seed for match play on the first cut day of the championships.
The field was narrowed to 15 teams plus the nine lowest individuals not on advancing teams for today's final round of stroke play, which will determine the individual champion and set the seeding for the eight-team match play.
University of Arkansas freshman Julian Perico, who carded a 4-over 76 on Sunday to fall to 6 over for the tournament, fell one stroke shy of a playoff for the final spot in the individual field.
"I'm right there, but unfortunately it works the way it works," Perico said. "Like you beat 60 percent of the field and I still don't make it to tomorrow, so that sucks."
TCU and USC made the day's biggest jumps to make the cut to 15 teams. The Horned Frogs shot even par on Sunday and leaped 10 places to 10th at 30 over. The Trojans came in at 4 over for the day and squeezed into the 15th spot by one shot over Pac-12 rival Arizona State at 36 over.
Oklahoma State has had the low round all three days at Blessings.
Wolff is at 7 under 209, two shots better than Eckroat and four strokes ahead of Arizona State's Chun An Yu for medalist honors. He recognized the value of fans, who have traveled from eastern Oklahoma to cheer for the Cowboys.
"I wasn't expecting crowds like this, but it's really awesome to see all the orange," Wolff said. "I think our fans are pretty generous. We clap for everyone. We acknowledge golf. Obviously it's not like they're rooting for [opponents], but still, when they hit good shots they clap. They're really awesome, supporting us out here. ... It's really cool to see a sea of orange."
Wolff tied the course record with a 66 on Saturday, and was pleased with his round Sunday.
"I'm pretty happy with it," he said. "The scores can take a beating on you. One day you can shoot the course record and the next day you can shoot a 78. That's just what this course does. If you're not on your game in every single aspect it can really wear you down. I feel like I've done a pretty good job of minimizing mistakes and we'll see how it goes tomorrow."
One of the day's best movers was No. 4 Vanderbilt, which climbed five spots to sixth with a 1-under round.
"I think we took a big step yesterday," Vanderbilt Coach Scott Limbaugh said. "We shot 19 over the first day and I really thought we lost who we were on the back nine. I just told the guys, 'If we're going to come this far and lose who we are and get small on each other, we can just load up the van and head on back to Nashville now.'
"That was kind of our talk after the first round. We got some momentum and had some guys play some good rounds yesterday ... and we got off to an unbelievable start today."
Texas was under par for a good portion of the round before settling for a 1 over and a tie with Stanford for second place at 13 over for the championship.
"I mean this golf course is great," Texas Coach John Fields said. "It keeps coming at you hole after hole, shot after shot. If you go to sleep at all out here it's going to make you pay. It's going to take its toll on you as a player.
" I'm really proud of their guys for the way they've handled it the last three days and created an opportunity for us to play on Monday, which is a goal. There will be 15 teams going home tomorrow and we'll have a chance to go even further."
No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 3 Wake Forest both had even-par rounds and stand in fourth and fifth, respectively at 16 over and 17 over.
"We'd like to be that much more ahead, and there's definitely been moments where we could be there, but we're not disappointed with where we're at because there are a lot of guys that will be going home today and we're not," Oklahoma Coach Ryan Hybl said. "We have a great opportunity in front of us tomorrow to be able to put a really solid round together and get ready for match play."
The Sooners were led by Garett Reband's 69, while Blaine Hale and Patrick Welch both shot 72.
The Demon Deacons' Lee Detmer and Euginia Chacarra both carded 71s and Alex Fitzpatrick rebounded from a triple-bogey 7 on No. 1 to post a 72.
" I tell you what, we had one guy play bad and the other four guys stepped up," Wake Forest Coach Jerry Haas said.
"We did a nice thing today as a team, we moved away a little bit from the cut line. But we've got to keep pushing. I think we're figuring out the course a little bit. The more you play it and have success, you see less and less of the trouble. Of the counters on the back side we made nine birdies and five bogeys, so we played a good back nine, and there's a lot of trouble back there."
SMU charged six spots up the leaderboard to ninth with a 4-over 292 after a scalding first 10 holes. The Mustangs were briefly at 8 under before giving back strokes on the tougher back nine.
"The kids played really well early and the wind started switching about mid-round, so 11 through 14 played really tough for us," SMU assistant coach Chris Parra said. "We'd gotten to 8 under, so you're just trying to hang in there and not make big mistakes."
Sports on 05/27/2019