Wheeling, W. Va. – The Wheeling University Men's Golf team played through the rain drops last week when they competed at the Vulcan Invitational. This week, they get their first taste of Mountain East Conference (MEC) play when they head to the Charleston Invitational. It will give the Cardinals a chance to see where they stack up against the conference, and see where they need to improve moving forward.

In their last event, rain played a big factor as it shortened what would have been a three round event into a two round event. Ok day one, the team's finished the first round of competition before the rains came through, delaying the start of round two. They eventually had to call the day due to darkness, and came back on day two. Once again, the rain came down and the teams ended up finishing their second round before canceling the third round of competition. Overall, the Cardinals finished 18th in the field, but saw some strong performances from some of their top golfers. They were facing some of the best golfers that the region had to offer and will look to use that as experience moving forward.

Leading the way were a pair of upperclassmen in Junior Austin Panhorst and Sophomore Nick Zaller. Both shot career best numbers in round one of the event and followed that by smashing that record in round two. For Panhorst, he shot a 76 in round one, and was among the leaders at the event with five birdies. As he moved to round two, he only added to that number, finishing the event with eight birdies and shooting a 70 to put him one under in round two. Zaller shot a similar 78 in round one and followed it up with an eight stroke improvement in round two, shooting a 71. It was the first time since the 2019 season that the Men's Golf team had two golfers finish at or below par in the same event, showing major growth from both players.

As the men head into their first conference tournament, they are looking to show that age doesn't matter. With four of their six golfers still being in either their freshmen or sophomore seasons, the Cardinals are one of the youngest teams in the MEC. They ranked #8 out of 9 teams in the annual MEC Men's Golf Preseason poll, and that is exactly where they finished the year prior. This season, their goal is to get into the top six of the MEC and have a chance to play on that third day of the MEC Championship, giving them a chance to compete for the title. This first conference tournament will give them a good gauge as to where they stand and what they need to work on to achieve that goal.

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