March 14, 2000
Freshman Dwayne Morley (Houston/Stratford HS) carded a final-round 73 on Tuesday to lead the Texas A&M men's golf team to a third-place finish at the Louisiana Classics at Oakbourne Country Club.
The Aggies carded rounds of 290-291-299=880 to finish 11 strokes behind No. 15-ranked Arizona, which won the tournament with a 54-hole total of 869. No. 24-ranked Kansas finished second at 876. Baylor finished fourth at 882, followed by No. 23-ranked Colorado (884), tournament host Louisiana-Lafayette (891), Tulsa (892), SMU (899), No. 22 Oklahoma (900), Sam Houston State (906), Southwest Texas State (915), Missouri (924), Rice (924), Arkansas (925) and Nebraska (931).
Morley finished fourth in the individual standings with rounds of 73-71-73=217, one-over-par on the 7.002-yard, par-72 layout. Arizona's Ricky Barnes captured the individual title at 73-72-68=213.
Also for A&M, sophomore Sean Gilliland (Killeen, Texas/Harker Heights HS) finished 14th at 74-73-74=221, sophomore Josh McCoy (Perryton, Texas/Perryton HS) tied for 22nd at 73-75-76=224, junior Casey Cronin (Rockwall, Texas/Rockwall HS) tied for 26th at 70-79-76=225 and senior Ty Cox (Amarillo, Texas/Amarillo HS) tied for 37th at 79-72-76=227.
The Aggies are back in action Sunday and Monday in Austin at the Morris Williams Intercollegiate at Austin Country Club.
"Our young players had a great tournament," A&M coach Bob Ellis said. "We finished a little better than we did in our last tournament, but we are still a little ragged on our shots from 80 to 100 yards, as well as our game management. We just threw too many shots away. We'll focus on those areas as we prepare for the tournament in Austin."