Wildcats' 13-Under Opener Leads the Field

LIHUE, Hawai'I – Arizona Men's Golf continued its dominating start to a new year by shooting an opening round of 13-under par at the John Burns Intercollegiate to lead the field by six strokes. The Wildcats were led by junior Chase Sienkiewicz and freshman Johnny Walker who fired rounds of 67 on Thursday. The Sienkiewicz-Walker tandem shot 5-under par to tie one another for fourth place on the individual leaderboards.

"I am very happy with our strong start to the John Burns Intercollegiate as we carried over our positive momentum from our Arizona Intercollegiate win and three good weeks of practice," said head coach Jim Anderson. "Our entire lineup got off to a strong start and never looked back. I'm looking forward to our team carding more great scores in tomorrow's second round."

The Cats tallied a tournament-high pair of eagles in the first round by Sienkiewicz and Cal McCoy on the second and fourth holes respectively. The early eagles were part of Arizona's 11-under score on the first nine holes of the Ocean Course at Hokuala.

Walker, who sank seven birdies in his round, birdied each of the course's first four holes on his way to the best par-3 scoring average of the entire field.

Arizona, who leads second-place Fresno State and New Mexico by six strokes, will begin their second round at 8:30 a.m. local time in Hawai'i on Friday.