San Diego State rallied from seven strokes down at the start of the final round to win the Southwestern Invitational by three shots over Arizona State in cold, windy conditions at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village.
David Puig of Arizona State claimed the individual title by nine strokes over Joshua McCarthy of Pepperdine.
San Diego State, which won the tournament for the third time, posted a winning score of 294-287-293—874, 10-over-par, while Arizona State, which led after each of the first two rounds, was second at 292-282-303—877, followed by SMU at 293-288-301—882, and Louisville at 296-283-306—885.
“‘Why not us’ has been our slogan the whole season and we’ve been sticking with it,” San Diego State Coach Ryan Donovan said. “We have great team chemistry and I just take my hat off to our guys. We had a good time and we just played well.
“We just kept working and doing what we do.”
Defending champion and host Pepperdine was fifth at 308-277-303—888, followed by USC at USC at 301-296-303—900, Georgia Tech at 303-294-305—902, East Tennessee State at 305-293-306—904, Cal at 305-292-317—914 and St. Mary’s of Moraga at 316-299-300—915.
San Jose State was 11th at 319-300-303—922, followed by Augusta at 316-303-304—923.
Puig, a sophomore from Spain, claimed his first individual title for the Sun Devils with a score of 70-66-70—206, 10-under, while McCarthy was second at 72-73-70—215.
“I played really good golf today with no bogeys,” said Puig, who was playing in his fifth college tournament. “Unfortunately, some of our guys didn’t play as well as they can and we didn’t win, so it’s tough. But we fought to the end and I’m proud of our team.
“I played really well all week, kept the ball low in the wind and stuck with my plan. So I’m very happy to win.”
RJ Manke of Pepperdine shot 74-69-73—216 to tie for third with Youssef Guezzale of San Diego State, who totaled 73-68-75—216, Noah Goodwin of SMU, who finished at 70-71-75—216 and Matthias Schmid of Louisville, who wound up at 71-68-77—216.
Chun An Yu of Arizona State carded a score of 73-72-72—217 to tie for seventh with McClure Meissner of SMU, who shot 72-71-74—217, while Joey Vrzich of Pepperdine totaled 76-67-75—218 to tie for ninth with Joey Moore of San Diego State, who came in at 72-71-75—218.
Rounding out the scoring for team champion San Diego State were Zihao Jin in a tie for 11th at 75-75-70—220, Puwit Anupansuebsai in a tie for 20th 78-73-73—224 and Steve Sugimoto in a tie for 26th at 74-75-77—226.
For complete results, visit http://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=21585
