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Oct. 20, 2009

Bidne paces men's golf to fifth-place team showing in Kansas City


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Day-one results | Day-two results

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Northern Colorado junior Stephen Bidne shot a 3-over-par 75 Tuesday at Blue Hills Country Club to finish tied for seventh, and the Bears came in fifth as a team in the 13-team field at Missouri-Kansas City's Bill Ross Intercollegiate.

Bidne was 5-over-par for the tournament, carding 221 strokes over the three rounds. His top 10 finish was Northern Colorado's third in four fall events this season and his second after he earned event medalist honors at Air Force's Gene Miranda Invitational in mid-September.

Still, following the final round Tuesday, Bears head coach Chuck Scheinost was more concerned with his team's performance. He said he was pleased that his guys have been able to get some individual success this year, but they continued in this event a trend of falling short golfer one through five.

Junior Troy Sidabras was Northern Colorado's second-best finisher in KC, coming in tied for 22nd (228, +12), and junior Nick Bisogno was a stroke behind and tied for 27th (229, +13).

Those three were the only Bears to finish in the top 30. And that cost Northern Colorado, which finished with a 908 team score, a legitimate shot at some team success. Central Arkansas won the event with an 880 score and Nebraska was second (885). Wichita State (third, 893) and Northern Iowa (fourth, 907) were right in the Bears' sights.

Northern Colorado finished ahead of Creighton, Kansas and the host Kangaroos.

"The weather, like it has for a lot of our events this fall, seemed to slow us down out there," Scheinost said. "But we can't use that as an excuse. We've got to carry our play over from one day to another if we're going have the kind of success we want. We've got a lot of work to do to get ready for next week in California and later on this spring."

Central Arkansas held off a strong final round by Nebraska to take home the team title by five shots. The Huskers posted the low team round of the tournament by finishing Tuesday's 18 holes with a 288. Wichita State's Dustin Garza, meanwhile, earned the medalist honor by finishing with a 5-under par 211. Garza posted two rounds below-par in the tournament (68-71) after opening play with an even-par 72 on Monday.