Marquette Golf At The 2018 NCAA Regionals: Hope Glimmers For Eichhorn & Murlick

Through two rounds at the 2018 NCAA men’s golf regional at Traditions Club in Bryan, Texas, Marquette freshman Hunter Eichhorn sits at +1 (74-71), while teammate Matt Murlick is at +2 (74-72).

Those are both perfectly respectable scores, with Eichhorn shooting one-under and jumping 18 spots on Day 2 into a tie for 19th place and Murlick’s even par round pushing him up 12 places into a tie for 25th place. There’s 75 players competing in Texas, so finishing in the top third is pretty good.

Unfortunately for Eichhorn and Murlick, they’re playing as individuals in this event. Their only way of advancing to the finals in Oklahoma is by recording the best score out of all of the guys not on the five best teams in the Bryan Regional in order to advance, and, well, that’s looking like a bit of a long shot heading into Wednesday’s final day of competition. McNeese State’s Blake Elliott, himself a solo player, is sitting in a tie for sixth place at six-under par (70-68) through two rounds. That’s a seven stroke lead on Eichhorn and eight on Murlick.

It’s not to say that they couldn’t rally on Day Three at Traditions. They only need to make up half the ground and hope that Elliott comes back to them. Of course, there’s also the matter of the other six competitors between Eichhorn and Elliott on the leaderboard, but hey, when you’re trying to make up a seven (or eight) stroke difference in just 18 rounds of golf, that’s really a secondary problem at best.

Again, there’s only one spot possible for either Eichhorn or Murlick to secure on Wednesday. You can following along with all the action via tweets from @MarquetteMGolf or by watching the live stats via Golfstat. Eichhorn will tee off at approximately 9:20am on Wednesday morning, while Murlick is scheduled to start at 9:42am.