Fifth-year senior Caleb VanArragon (Blaine, Minn. / Blaine) added another top-2 finish to his distinguished career by sharing runner-up honors in a 93-player field as the GCU Invite concluded on Wednesday. The 54-hole event was hosted by the Lopes at the par-71, 7124-yard GCU Golf Course in Phoenix. The Beacons competed in a strong field that featured three teams ranked in the top 100 nationally (GCU, Washington State, Cal State Fullerton) and five in the top 150 (Pacific, Creighton).

How It Happened

• VanArragon closed his week with a 70 (-1) in the third and final round, finishing with a three-round total of 204 (-9) to share runner-up status with Fullerton’s Russell Howlett. They were behind only Tommaso Zorzetto of host GCU as he pulled away for medalist honors at 198 (-15). VanArragon closed out the runner-up finish with a consistent showing on Wednesday with a clean scorecard that featured 17 pars and one birdie.
• VanArragon has been either the individual medalist or runner-up in three of his six tournaments this season. This marked his 14^th career top-2 finish and his 22^nd top-5 finish.
• Junior Anthony Delisanti (Sanborn, N.Y. / Niagara Wheatfield) posted the team’s best score in Wednesday’s round, carding his second straight 69. He rounded out a 54-hole score of 210 (-3) to surge into a tie for 14^th on the player leaderboard.
• The team’s scoring on Wednesday was rounded out by Mason Bonn (Sherwood, Ore. / Sherwood) and Sam Booth (Carmel, Ind. / Carmel), both of whom carded 74s. Bonn had the third-best tournament score on the team, tied for 59^th at 219 (+6).
• Valpo finished 10^th of 16 as a team at 853 (+1), turning in a 287 in Round 3.

Thoughts from Head Coach Dave Gring

“Even though there were a lot of positive takeaways from the tourney, we are still kicking off a good amount of rust from the winter months and working our way back into playing more competitively. There are some shots that we are trying to make and we can’t yet. There are some shots that we think we can make and they just aren’t being fully executed. We’re making excellent progress each week and making a lot of good decisions on the golf course. We’re going to look forward to more time to practice on actual grass and start playing rounds of golf on our home course to practice and qualify for tournaments.”

“Despite actually struggling quite a bit with his sequencing and swing, Caleb really grinded out three competitive rounds and made the most of his play for this tournament. He hit 18 greens in regulation in the first round and 17 greens in the last round. He was giving himself a lot of opportunities to make birdies, converting five of those in the first round, and only one in today’s round. Caleb had a terrific mindset and really kept playing in the moment and managing the course very well.”

“We’re going to keep working on our wedge games and approach shots to the greens. We simply need to get the ball closer to the hole during these rounds and give ourselves better opportunities to make birdies. The guys played pretty solid off the tee, and I was very pleased with our chipping around the greens. We will have a couple more weeks of practice before our next tournament and look forward to our third tournament of the spring.”

Up Next

The Beacons will be back in action on Sunday, March 24 to begin the Mobile Bay Intercollegiate at RTJ Magnolia Grove in Mobile, Ala. A link to live scoring will be available on ValpoAthletics.com.