Men’s golf in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is different than every other sport. After playing just two fall tournaments, Ashland is already gearing up for the GLIAC Championship, to be held Oct. 5-7 in Bath, Mich.

“We think we can beat every team,” sophomore Austin Schreiber said. “We’ve just got to go out and put four good scores together and do it.”

In order to take down their competition at GLIACs, the Eagles must make a major improvement from their last performance at the GLIAC North Tournament, where they finished 10th out of 14 teams.

Schreiber led the way, firing 150 in the two-day tournament to finish tied for 26th.

Backing him up was sophomore Eric Dowiatt, who shot 152 – including a final day 72 – to tie for 36th.

Senior Nick Blackburn, senior Marc Matteson and junior Jake Houston rounded out the scoring for Ashland, which shot 609, well off the pace of the winning score of 578 put up by Saginaw Valley State.

“That wouldn’t even win a high school tournament,” Schreiber said of Ashland’s lackluster score.

Among those who placed ahead of the Eagles were many teams they will face next weekend, including Malone, Wayne State and Grand Valley State, whom Schreiber and Dowiatt believe will be gunning for the top.

Malone is a major threat and one team that the Eagles would love to take down.

“We’ve got a beef with Malone,” Dowiatt said.

Ashland has targeted a few specific areas it needs to work on to prepare for the conference championship. Not surprisingly, chipping and putting top that list.

“Our weak point right now is our wedge game,” Schreiber said. “We’re going to dedicate this whole week of practice to our putting and wedge game.”

As both he and Dowiatt rightly point out, most college golfers are able to strike the ball fairly consistently. It is what they do around the green that separate the average golfers from the cream of the crop.

“We just need to stop acting like we’re Tiger Woods and we can hit every shot,” Dowiatt said. “We need to step up and start making pars and stop making bogeys and double bogeys.”

Based on recent results, winning the GLIAC Championship may seem far-fetched.

However, it is a task this group has already pulled off once when it won the preview of this very same tournament last spring.

Getting back to that form may be easier said than done.

“Something’s wrong,” Dowiatt said. “Other teams are stepping up and we’re not. We’re getting dusted right now.”

Even though the main championship season for the men is in the spring, this tournament could serve as a springboard as the team heads into the winter break. With just GLIACs and the Great Lakes Regional in St. Louis on Oct. 14 and 15 left, Ashland must string together some solid rounds to put itself in a better position than where it is right now.

A win would mean automatic qualification for the Super Regional in May, which could prove invaluable given the strength the GLIAC and Great Lakes Valley Conference have shown so far.