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What to Make of a Season Cut Short: BSU Men’s Golf in 2019-20
April 13, 2020 | Men's Golf
Cardinals flashed potential for greatness, hoped to contend for MAC title
The Ball State men's golf team was just about to enter the heart of its spring schedule.
Actually, the Cardinals had played only a third of it. Just one match play event and one stroke play tournament. A heavy month of April awaited.
Trips to Vanderbilt's Mason Rudolph Championship, Purdue's Boilermaker Invitational and Ohio's State's Robert Kepler Intercollegiate were on the horizon. Three top collegiate venues where BSU would have competed against strong national fields with teams the caliber of No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 9 Vanderbilt, No. 11 Louisville and more.
It was a string of tests designed to prepare the Cardinals for their final examination scheduled for the first weekend of May at the MAC Championships in Fort Wayne. Ball State would have ventured to Sycamore Hills expecting to contend.
The league tournament seemed to be as wide open as any in recent memory. The Cardinals were the third-rated team in the conference when the season was cut short, just barely behind Miami for the No. 2 spot. They had real hopes to return to the postseason for the first time since 2013 when BSU reached the national championships.
But the COVID-19 outbreak brought everything to a screeching halt. Ball State was one week removed from the Desert Mountain Classic and still two weeks away from that busy April when sports were shut down.
The record books will show no MAC champion for 2019-20, no national champion either. So what to make of Ball State's season without the ultimate prize to play for? Well, it was a year of ups and downs that started with the biggest "up" of all.
A Fast Start
The Cardinals knew they were capable of big things. In fact, they returned everyone except Timothy Wiseman from a team that set the school's single-season scoring average record the year before. But no one could have predicted the sort of dominating performance they authored right out of the gates.
The season-opening Golfweek Conference Challenge in mid-September featured 10 teams that played in 2019 NCAA Regionals and seven that ended the previous season ranked in the top 100 nationally. Ball State blitzed all of them.
Behind Joey Ranieri's nearly flawless runner-up performance and a top-10 from Keegan Bronnenberg, the Cardinals ran away with a 15-shot win at Cedar Rapids Country Club. BSU led wire-to-wire. It wasn't close. The program's largest margin of victory since 2009 catapulted it to its best-ever national ranking of No. 20 by Golfweek.
Taking into account his team's overwhelming performance and the quality of the field, Mike Fleck called it perhaps the best win in his 22 years as head coach.
A Tough Stretch
The early success proved difficult to maintain. Never a program to back down from first-class competition and challenging courses, Ball State's next three tournaments proved difficult. The champions of those events read like a "who's who" of college golf." No. 3 Arizona State won at Trinity Forest, Purdue held off Northwestern and UCLA to win at Erin Hills, and No. 25 Georgia edged Vanderbilt by one at Crooked Stick.
The Cardinals were in position for a good finish at Trinity Forest before a poor final nine holes derailed those chances. Then their results slid further at Erin Hills and Crooked Stick, as more chances for ranking points against quality teams went by the wayside.
But Ball State rebounded to close out the fall campaign with a tie for third in the Musketeer Classic at Maketewah Country Club behind Bronnenberg's third-place individual finish. After the winter layover, the Cardinals' start to the spring wasn't what they hoped, but they remained optimistic about regaining their earlier form.
A One-Two Punch
Bronnenberg and Ranieri were consistently good all year. They gave Ball State a one-two punch to rival any in the MAC. In the final rankings when the season was canceled, Golfweek rated Bronnenberg as the No. 2 golfer in the league and Ranieri as No. 7.
In terms of scoring average, Bronnenberg was putting together a season to contend among the best in program history. Jamie Broce's mark of 71.74 from 1998-99 has long been the gold standard at Ball State. Bronnenberg had his work cut out for him if he was going to catch that, but the Muncie native's 72.61 mark edged Eric Steger's 72.68 from 2010-11 for the second-best in BSU annals. He did it while playing either No. 1 or No. 2 in the lineup in every event.
Ranieri himself managed one of the 10 best single-season averages in school history at 73.00. Even better, the sophomore's 73.39 career average right now is the best of any BSU player ever through his first two seasons of college golf. Ranieri was even-par or better in half of his 18 rounds (the best of anyone on the team) and carded five rounds in the 60's.
Seeking Consistency
Ball State was searching for more consistency throughout the rest of lineup. The pieces were there. It was a matter of putting it all together.
Sophomore Yianni Kostouros recorded his best career finish with a tie for 12th at Maketewah. Veterans CJ Jones and Jack Cunningham, key contributors for several years, had their moments. Cunningham happened to be playing his best golf of the season before the cancelation. Freshmen Joey Wiseman and Evan Bone both cracked the lineup at various times and had a chance to gain valuable experience.
But no one was peaking like Tyler Green. At the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate which proved to be the Cardinals' final event, Green turned in arguably the best performance of any BSU golfer this season, rivaling that of Ranieri at the Golfweek Conference Challenge.
Competing as an individual, Green fired rounds of 68, 72 and 69 to finish third in a field of 72. The only players to beat him were the nation's fourth-ranked golfer John Augenstein of Vanderbilt and Mississippi State's Garrett Johnson. Only Augenstein made more birdies than Green's 16 for the week. Green's performance would have given him a chance to break back into the lineup as he looked to carry that momentum into the key April stretch.
Ball State went through various incarnations of the lineup as the season progressed. The Cardinals certainly were looking for some stability as they prepared to take on the meat of their spring schedule. Had they been able to find it, they likely would have been in position to contend at Sycamore Hills where they nearly won the league title two seasons ago.
The good news is Ball State again loses just one player from this year's roster. The bad news is that player is Bronnenberg who graduates next month and departs to pursue a professional career. But a recruiting class of three distinguished high school players and one of the best from the junior college ranks is on its way to Muncie. The Cardinals will no doubt have a deep and talented roster in the fall when they tee it up again.
Actually, the Cardinals had played only a third of it. Just one match play event and one stroke play tournament. A heavy month of April awaited.
Trips to Vanderbilt's Mason Rudolph Championship, Purdue's Boilermaker Invitational and Ohio's State's Robert Kepler Intercollegiate were on the horizon. Three top collegiate venues where BSU would have competed against strong national fields with teams the caliber of No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 9 Vanderbilt, No. 11 Louisville and more.
It was a string of tests designed to prepare the Cardinals for their final examination scheduled for the first weekend of May at the MAC Championships in Fort Wayne. Ball State would have ventured to Sycamore Hills expecting to contend.
The league tournament seemed to be as wide open as any in recent memory. The Cardinals were the third-rated team in the conference when the season was cut short, just barely behind Miami for the No. 2 spot. They had real hopes to return to the postseason for the first time since 2013 when BSU reached the national championships.
But the COVID-19 outbreak brought everything to a screeching halt. Ball State was one week removed from the Desert Mountain Classic and still two weeks away from that busy April when sports were shut down.
The record books will show no MAC champion for 2019-20, no national champion either. So what to make of Ball State's season without the ultimate prize to play for? Well, it was a year of ups and downs that started with the biggest "up" of all.
A Fast Start
The Cardinals knew they were capable of big things. In fact, they returned everyone except Timothy Wiseman from a team that set the school's single-season scoring average record the year before. But no one could have predicted the sort of dominating performance they authored right out of the gates.
The season-opening Golfweek Conference Challenge in mid-September featured 10 teams that played in 2019 NCAA Regionals and seven that ended the previous season ranked in the top 100 nationally. Ball State blitzed all of them.
Behind Joey Ranieri's nearly flawless runner-up performance and a top-10 from Keegan Bronnenberg, the Cardinals ran away with a 15-shot win at Cedar Rapids Country Club. BSU led wire-to-wire. It wasn't close. The program's largest margin of victory since 2009 catapulted it to its best-ever national ranking of No. 20 by Golfweek.
Taking into account his team's overwhelming performance and the quality of the field, Mike Fleck called it perhaps the best win in his 22 years as head coach.
A Tough Stretch
The early success proved difficult to maintain. Never a program to back down from first-class competition and challenging courses, Ball State's next three tournaments proved difficult. The champions of those events read like a "who's who" of college golf." No. 3 Arizona State won at Trinity Forest, Purdue held off Northwestern and UCLA to win at Erin Hills, and No. 25 Georgia edged Vanderbilt by one at Crooked Stick.
The Cardinals were in position for a good finish at Trinity Forest before a poor final nine holes derailed those chances. Then their results slid further at Erin Hills and Crooked Stick, as more chances for ranking points against quality teams went by the wayside.
But Ball State rebounded to close out the fall campaign with a tie for third in the Musketeer Classic at Maketewah Country Club behind Bronnenberg's third-place individual finish. After the winter layover, the Cardinals' start to the spring wasn't what they hoped, but they remained optimistic about regaining their earlier form.
A One-Two Punch
Bronnenberg and Ranieri were consistently good all year. They gave Ball State a one-two punch to rival any in the MAC. In the final rankings when the season was canceled, Golfweek rated Bronnenberg as the No. 2 golfer in the league and Ranieri as No. 7.
In terms of scoring average, Bronnenberg was putting together a season to contend among the best in program history. Jamie Broce's mark of 71.74 from 1998-99 has long been the gold standard at Ball State. Bronnenberg had his work cut out for him if he was going to catch that, but the Muncie native's 72.61 mark edged Eric Steger's 72.68 from 2010-11 for the second-best in BSU annals. He did it while playing either No. 1 or No. 2 in the lineup in every event.
Ranieri himself managed one of the 10 best single-season averages in school history at 73.00. Even better, the sophomore's 73.39 career average right now is the best of any BSU player ever through his first two seasons of college golf. Ranieri was even-par or better in half of his 18 rounds (the best of anyone on the team) and carded five rounds in the 60's.
Seeking Consistency
Ball State was searching for more consistency throughout the rest of lineup. The pieces were there. It was a matter of putting it all together.
Sophomore Yianni Kostouros recorded his best career finish with a tie for 12th at Maketewah. Veterans CJ Jones and Jack Cunningham, key contributors for several years, had their moments. Cunningham happened to be playing his best golf of the season before the cancelation. Freshmen Joey Wiseman and Evan Bone both cracked the lineup at various times and had a chance to gain valuable experience.
But no one was peaking like Tyler Green. At the Desert Mountain Intercollegiate which proved to be the Cardinals' final event, Green turned in arguably the best performance of any BSU golfer this season, rivaling that of Ranieri at the Golfweek Conference Challenge.
Competing as an individual, Green fired rounds of 68, 72 and 69 to finish third in a field of 72. The only players to beat him were the nation's fourth-ranked golfer John Augenstein of Vanderbilt and Mississippi State's Garrett Johnson. Only Augenstein made more birdies than Green's 16 for the week. Green's performance would have given him a chance to break back into the lineup as he looked to carry that momentum into the key April stretch.
Ball State went through various incarnations of the lineup as the season progressed. The Cardinals certainly were looking for some stability as they prepared to take on the meat of their spring schedule. Had they been able to find it, they likely would have been in position to contend at Sycamore Hills where they nearly won the league title two seasons ago.
The good news is Ball State again loses just one player from this year's roster. The bad news is that player is Bronnenberg who graduates next month and departs to pursue a professional career. But a recruiting class of three distinguished high school players and one of the best from the junior college ranks is on its way to Muncie. The Cardinals will no doubt have a deep and talented roster in the fall when they tee it up again.
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