By Josh Shaver Posted May 29, 2013
Many people had doubts the Buckaroos could repeat after the southern teams dropped from the 4A. After last year’s dominating performance at state, the Lowry Buckaroos found themselves trailing after the first day of the state this year to Faith Lutheran.
The Bucks hadn’t trailed all season or really even came close to losing.
On the first day, the Buckaroos trailed by 23 shots after the first nine holes of play. The momentum turned after that as the Bucks rallied back and only trailed by 1 to close the day.
After Cole Erquiaga shot a team-low of 76 followed by Ethan Gray (77), Chris Mendoza (77), Josh Rose (81), and Chris Dendary and Andy Mendoza tied for 84.
“From coming back from a 1 stroke deficit on the first day to watch them dominate like that I couldn’t be more proud. The attitude was great. That was the first time we jumped in the suburban after being down by 1 stroke. It felt like we were up by 30. The momentum totally shifted our way. With all the speculation on the southern teams and the hype of Faith Lutheran, we were kind of the underdog coming into the tournament. We pretty much established that the Lowry golf dynasty will be here for a while.
Congrats to everybody, and a special congrats to Chris Dendary and Ethan Gray for going so low on the second day. I couldn’t be more proud of Chris for what he accomplished his senior year,” said coach Andrew Meyer.
The second day went well. Ethan Gray shot a team-low of 71 and finished second overall in the state. Chris Dendary shot 72 and finished fifth overall in the state. Cole Erquiaga shot 82 on the second day having trouble putting, but he finished tied for sixth.
Chris Mendoza shot 82 as well on the second day and finished seventh overall. Andy Mendoza shot 84 on his first day and still placed in the top ten. Josh Rose shot a 88 on the second day to place 15th. The team total for the two days was 786 which was good enough to take state for the second straight year.