BOULDER CITY, Nev. – Colorado Mesa sophomore
Baptiste Laborde led the Mavericks in the opening round of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships at Boulder Creek Golf Course on Sunday (Apr. 20) afternoon.
Laborde shot an opening round 4-under, 68 and is currently in a tie for second with three others in the individual leaderboard. He is currently tied with Fort Lewis' Ronald Kildall III, Westminster's Xavier Del La Rosa, and Colorado Christian's No. 2 Sungyeop Cho.
His 68 is his best score he has had during his college career and his first score in the 60s. It tops his previous best of 71 which came at the Ryan Palmer Foundation Invite and the RJGA Palm Valley Classic just two weeks ago.
The Versailles, France native started off hot recording birdies on No. 2, No. 4, and the monster 635-yard, par-5. His only blemish on his card came on No. 8 where he bogeyed but bounced back with a birdie on No. 9 to close out his first nine. He shot 1-under on his back nine paired with eight pars.
Timmy Cavarno had a round under par to open his Conference Championship run. The Redlands, Calif. native fired a 1-under, 71 in the round and recorded five birdies but paired them with two bogeys and a double. Both bogeys came on the back nine on No. 10 and No. 13 but was able to close with birdies on No. 14 and No. 15 before finishing the round.
Cavarno is in a tie for 15
th on the leaderboard with the Fort Lewis duo of Traejan Andrews and Tyler Tyson.
Cole Beyer shot an even-par, 72 to finish as the Mavericks No. 3 golfer while
Luke Wagstaff finished as the No. 4 with a 3-over, 75.
Colorado Christian's Sangha Park, ranked No. 3 in the country, shot an opening round 5-under, 67 to take the early medalist lead.
Colorado Mesa, ranked No. 26 nationally, sits in fifth place with a 2-under, 286 after the first day of the championships. They are well within striking distance as they trail No. 35 CSU Pueblo by two strokes and are six strokes outside the top-3.
Top-ranked Colorado Christian has a one stroke lead for the team title after the first round with a 12-under, 276.
The Mavericks will be a part of the morning tee times as they were in the afternoon group for today's rounds. They will have the first tee times at 9:30am PDT and their final group will tee off at 10:06am PDT.
