The Irish jumped up one spot to fifth place during Tuesday's third and final round of Notre Dame's sixth annual Fighting Irish Gridiron Classic at the Warren Golf Course.
"It was a tough day," Irish coach Jim Kubinski said. "In every tournament we have had two or three guys who didn't really play as well as they could, and it hurt us again."
Senior Max Scodro led the Irish with a fourth-place individual standing after shooting a 69 (-1) in Tuesday's final round. The Chicago native opened the third round with back-to-back birdies and never looked back during his commanding performance.
"Max was solid throughout the tournament, but he was just outstanding [Tuesday]," Kubinski said. "I think he had just one bad swing [Tuesday]. On Monday, he had a few mental mistakes and some issues with course management that cost him, but he definitely came back strong."
Senior Tom Usher sat in ninth place after a solid opening two rounds Monday with a plus-3. The British international's score brought him down in the individual rankings after he shot an 81 (+11) on the final day of play.
"It was just a few rounds that unraveled on him," Kubinski said. "It looked like he was back to where he was at the end of last year. But I think we have to take a lot of the good things Tom showed in this tournament and get him back to the position he was in."
St. Mary's (Calif.) and Houston tied for the tournament championship after the Gaels came from behind to clip Houston for a share of the title at 30-over-par. Meanwhile, Texas-Arlington junior Paul McConnell finished first in the individual competition for the third-place Mavericks.
"It's interesting because Houston was such an up-and-down team, but they really played well last year and showed it today," Kubinski said. "A lot of the same applies for St. Mary's, and they each had four really good scores consistently that helped them to pull away."
After finishing the first round tied for third, things looked promising for Notre Dame. But the Irish struggled in the later rounds with high scores that put them out of title contention, something that Kubinski partially attributes to the harsh conditions as rain poured down throughout the tournament.
"We played in the worst of [the rain], for sure," he said. "But even with the rain it didn't really change where we finished. If we can eliminate some of the big numbers we are going to start winning tournaments."
Notre Dame has a three-week break before heading to South Carolina for The Invitational at Kiawah Island on Oct. 17.
Contact Andrew Gastelum at agaste11@nd.edu
