Shotaro Ban of Cal finished second and Stanford wound up third in the team standings in the 69th Annual Western Collegiate at Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz.
Ban, a junior from San Jose, posted a score of 68-69-67–204 and finished second behind freshman Scottie Scheffler of team champion Texas, who claimed the first title of his college career with a score of 66-68-67–201, 9-under-par..
“My ball-striking really put me in good position,” said Ban, whose only better finish for the Golden Bears was a victory in the John A. Burns Intercollegiate earlier this season.
“I kept it in play the whole tournament. I hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens. It makes it a lot easier doing that. It’s also always fun playing a local course that I played prior to college. It’s nice to come back here.”
Added Coach Steve Desimone of Cal: “Shotaro had a tremendous performance given the great field individual players. It’s very impressive and a wonderful reward for how hard Shotaro has worked.
“He’s really doing everything right, not just learning skills but learning how to play the game. You can see all that coming together and what you see is the development of a great player.”
Jon Rahm of San Jose was third at 68-70-68–206, while Maverick McNealy of Stanford shot 68-70-69–207 and tied for fourth with Zach Foushee of Oregon, who totaled 72-70-65–207, and Viraat Badhwar of Stanford was sixth at 69-69-70–208.
Matt Pinizzotto of UCLA tied for 12th at 69-73-70–212, and Xander Schauffele of San Diego State carded a score of 71-70-72–213 to tie for 14th with Beau Hossler of Texas and Mission Viejo, who came in at 69-76-68–213.
Jonah Texeira of USC shot 74-66-75–215 and tied for 17th with Jonathan Garrick of UCLA, who finished at 71-69-75–215, while David Kim of UC Irvine totaled 71-74-71–216 to finish in a tie for 20th that included Patrick Grimes of Stanford, who wound up at 73-71-72–216.
Brian Song led San Diego State in a tie for 26th at 73-76-68–217 and Cody Blick of San Jose State tied for 40th at 77-69-75–221.
Third-ranked Texas took the team title at 346-366-340–1052, two-over-par, followed by Oregon at 361-353-352–1066 and Stanford at 354-353-360–1067.
UCLA was sixth at 358-368-362–1088 and USC finished seventh at 357-370-366–1093.
San Diego State was ninth at 370-366-365–1101, followed by Cal at 360-379-368–1107, UC Irvine at 378-378-361–1117 and San Jose State at 375-373-376–1124.
