Defense of conference title falls just short

"UCLA is a great team," UW men's golf coach Matt Thurmond said of the UW's prospects for defending its conference title. "We are going to have to be confident and aggressive to win. It sounds like a cliche, but that's what we have to do -- we have to attack. I think we have the players to do it."

Those were the coach's optimistic words following a less-than-impressive day three for the UW at the Pac-10 Championship. After jumping into second place with two very good rounds on Monday, the Huskies followed up with a 6-over on Tuesday, but still held a comfortable cushion in second place behind UCLA -- only six shots back.

A repeat Pac-10 title fell short during yesterday's championship round, as Washington did not have enough to pass the Bruins.

In fact, the Huskies ended up taking steps backwards, shooting an alarming 12-over during the final day of work, ballooning the gap between them and UCLA to 12 strokes, but still five shots ahead of third-place Arizona State.

The drop off for the team did not include junior Erik Olson or senior James Lepp. Olson -- last year's Pac-10 Individual Champion -- defended his title wholeheartedly, concluding his tournament with a 1-under to round out his score at three-under for the tournament.

Olson's final score of 281 was good enough for third in the tournament, finishing only behind UCLA's Daniel Im and Arizona State's Niklas Lemke at 277 and 278, respectively.

"For Erik, there was a lot of pressure," Thurmond said. "He's the defending Pac-10 Champion, so to come in and play the way he did today was really admirable."

Lepp bounced back from recent struggles to finish with a score of 284, even with par for the event.

Aside from those two, day four was an uphill battle with sophomore Zach Bixler and junior Alex Prugh losing serious ground.

Prugh began the day only 1-over and in the top 10, but a 74 dropped him to No. 14 and out of contention.

Bixler -- who started the final round tied with Lepp at 1-under -- fell hard, scoring a 7-over and finished No. 17 with a score of 290.

The final two Huskies -- sophomores Sterling Clark and Joe Panzeri -- finished well off the pace with scores of 297 and 300, respectively.

Reach Daily reporter Justin Chartrey at [url='mailto:justinchartrey@thedaily.washington.edu']justinchartrey@thedaily.washington.edu[/url].