October 25, 2012

NEWBERG, Ore. – In five years of men's intercollegiate golf, the George Fox University team has never finished higher than fifth in the Northwest Conference Fall Classic, but the Bruins hope to surpass that level in the 2012 NWC Fall Classic coming up this Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 27-28, at the Tri-Mountain Golf Course in Ridgefield, Wash.

Tee times both days are set for 8:30 a.m. with a shotgun start.  The NWC Women's Fall Classic will be taking place at Tri-Mountain at the same time, with the men going off on the front nine and the women on the back nine on Saturday.  The men's course will be played as a par-72 at a distance of 6,580 yards.

George Fox took fifth place in the fall event in 2009, but slipped to seventh and sixth in each of the last two Classics.  However, a veteran lineup led by seniors Chris Lumsden, Aleks Gabrio and Kyle Wilson could give the Bruins a realistic chance of moving into the top half of the conference for the first time.

Lumsden leads the Bruins with a 73.2 scoring average, a figure that has him ranked 34th in the latest NCAA Division III national statistics by GolfStat.com.  He is the first Bruin in the six-year history of the program to appear in the top 50 in the national stats, and became the first Bruin ever to medal when he won the Linfield Invitational on Sept. 27. 

Gabrio is second on the team with a 79.7 stroke average and Wilson, the only lefty on the team, is third with an 83.0 average.  Completing the Bruins' quintet of players who will be competing this weekend are sophomore Tyler Dyck and freshman Dylan Harris, who have scoring averages of 83.6 and 89.5 respectively.  Head coach Matt Beck is in his sixth season, having initiated the Bruins' program in 2007.

The University of Puget Sound is the defending Fall Classic champion after winning its second straight title in 2011 with a 17-over-par 288-305=593 at the Heron Lakes Golf Course's Great Blue links in Portland, Ore.  George Fox shot a 322-311=633 on the par-72, 6,491-yard course to place sixth.

Individually, Gabrio had the Bruins' best score with a 76-78=154, tying for 11th on the leader board, followed by Wilson with an 82-75=157.  Lumsden had an 85-76=161, Dyck an 87-82=169, and Mike Ulstad a 79-84=163.  Dustin Hegge of Pacific Lutheran University took medalist honors with an even-par 68-76=144 and is back to defend his title this year.

The Fall Classic constitutes one quarter of the points total toward the overall conference championship, as does the NWC Spring Classic, with the NWC Championship Tournament later in the spring counting as one half of the total score.