The third and final round of the Missouri State Invite concluded Tuesday afternoon in Springfield, Miss., as Eastern’s men’s golf team tried to gain some ground from their last place standing.

Eastern entered Tuesday with a combined team score of +105.

Eleven schools teed off Tuesday morning starting at 8 a.m. up until 9:12 a.m., with half the group starting on the front nine of the course while the other half covered the back nine.

Freshman Alvaro Hernandez, freshman Chuck Adare, sophomore Alex Gowin, junior Daniel Hughes and junior Ryan Hughes represented Eastern at the two-day tournament. The five players started their final round on the tenth hole Tuesday.

Each player was paired up with members from Missouri State and South Dakota.

Hernandez had the most successful day for the Panthers on the course. He was +2 after the first ten holes, but quickly found his shot and received a score of -2 on the last nine holes played.

Both scores would even out, leaving him with a score of 71 and an even par on the scorecard. Alvaro finished at +12 for the event and managed to have the best score out of the five Panther golfers. Hernandez placed tied for 16 in the overall standings.

Hernandez came into the second day tied for 36th place and finished with a three-round score of 225.

Adare had a number of bogeys, including a couple of double bogeys during the start of his day on the back nine. He scored +11 for the first nine holes, but would turn things around on the second half of his day with a score of +1. He ended up placing 49th overall for the tournament.

Adare was the team leader after the first day and tied for 31st.

As a team, Central Arkansas took home first place with a combined team score of 874. The teams’ average score out of the three rounds came out to be 291, giving them a finishing score of +22 over par.

Freshman Luis Obiols helped Central Arkansas to a first place title by finishing first place overall in the player’s bracket with three scores of 69, 71 and 75. Obilos finished with a score of +2, just one stroke ahead of Missouri State’s Joey Johnson.

Missouri State, the hosting school, received second place for their two days of play. They trailed first place by seven strokes at the end of Tuesday. Missouri State did hold first place for the total amount of pars accumulated, which came out to be 113.

The next competition for the Panthers will be at the Arkansas State Invitational. This event will take place at Ridge Point Country Club on April 4th. This two-week break will give Eastern enough time to bounce back and prepare for their next competition.

Eastern has finished in last place in four out of the six matches they have played this season, including its fall schedule.

Jack Arkus can be reached at 581-2812 or jtarkus@eiu.edu.