#3 Kirkwood Wins Upper Iowa Spring Invite
Waterloo, IA- The third-ranked Kirkwood Golf Team traveled to Waterloo this past weekend to compete in the Upper Iowa Invite held at Sunnyside Country Club. The Eagles were ready to compete and go low.
Kirkwood was able to play with two teams in the tournament, with one team including golfers Grant Greazel, Nate Offerman, Frank Haege, Gannon Hall, and Leo Burger. The other squad included Quinn Tinkler, Tate Brunk, Nathan Bratanata, and Payton Burns. The first day of competition was a battle between the top 8 teams with only 11 strokes separating the 1st place team and the 8th place team. Grant Grezel paced the field on the first day shooting an even-par 72. Nathan Bratanata was tied for fourth shooting a +3 (75). Three other Eagles rounded out the competition with freshman Nate Offerman shooting a +6 (78) that was good for a tie for 14th place, freshman Tate Brunk and sophomore Frank Haege both shooting a 79 (+7) to tie for 20th. After day one Kirkwood was in fourth place as a team with a 312 (+24) and the other Kirkwood squad was also close to the top shooting a 7th place 320 (+32).
The second day of the competition is when the Eagles would really make their push. Grant Greazel would pick up where he left off the day before. He would shoot a 34 (-2) on the front nine and a 39 (+3) on the back, finishing with a 73 for the round and a +1 score for the tournament which would be good enough for 1st place individually. Nate Offerman would have a front nine to remember. The freshman would birdie holes 4, 5, 7, and 9 on the front and go one over on the back to shoot a tournament-best 3 under (69). This would be enough to catapult him into 2nd place as an individual where he finished the tournament at +3. The top two spots were not enough for the Eagles, however, and sophomore Nathan Bratanata would shoot a final round 74 to put him at +5 for the tournament to give him the overall 3rd place finish. Kirkwood would shoot a team-best 295 in the final round to put them at 607 (+31). This would be enough to claim first overall as a team, 8 strokes ahead of the second-place finish. The other Kirkwood team also made strides on the field on the last day of competition as well. They would shoot a 627 (+51) to take 5th place in the tournament, jumping their previous day's finish by 2 spots.
Kirkwood will be traveling to Springfield, IL this week on Thursday and Friday where they will compete in the Blue Boy Invite at the Rail Golf Course.
