UCLA Wins U.S. Collegiate Championship


No. 3 UCLA finished with a team score of 852 (-12) to edge fellow Pac-12 member Washington and Auburn by three strokes to win the U.S. Collegiate Championship at the Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta.

The Bruins' team includes sophomore Patrick Cantlay, juniors Pedro Figueiredo and Pontus Widegren and senior Alex Kim. Cantlay is the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world.

Auburn's Dominic Bozzelli and Texas A&M sophomore Johannes Veerman ended up tied for individual honors at 6-under 210. Veerman was the only player in the field to shoot below par in all three rounds. He posted rounds of 71-70-69, collecting 14 birdies on the week.

Cantlay finished tied for third with a 4-under 212 with Auburn's Blayne Barber and Michael Johnson, the UW's Cheng-Tsung Pan and Duke's Julian Suri. Clemens, Figueiredo, Kim and Widegren all finished in the top 22.

UCLA coach Derek Freeman was pleased with his team's effort. "Any time you win, it's an accomplishment because you feel like your hard work paid off," he said. "The guys did a great job; it was challenging and it was a battle to the very end, and I'm very proud of our performance."

With its first win of the season, UCLA now returns home for The Gifford Collegiate at CordeValle in San Martin, Calif., where they are the host. "We want to start a little winning streak now," Figueiredo said. "It's our own tournament, so it's a special event for us. We want to keep building on this win and move forward."

Coach Matt Thurmond was disappointed that the Huskies came up short but was proud of his squad. "It was a good job by our guys," Thurmond said about the No. 6 rated UW. "They showed great composure and were steady the whole tournament. Things kind of got away from us a little yesterday at the end, but today they showed great resilience."

For all the scores, visit http://www.golfstatresults.com/public/leaderboards/team/static/team2808.html.