The golf team had a rain-soaked outing last weekend, and the weather drained the momentum right out of the squad. The Judges finished in eighth place with a total score of 643 at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Men's Division III Championships in Somers, Conn. The team finished 32 strokes behind first-place Endicott College. University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth finished in second place with a 615, and Castleton State and Johnson and Wales University tied for third place with 619.

Brandeis shot a 334 in the first round, which started last Saturday but was cut short midway through and postponed until Sunday because of the inclement weather. Coach Bill Shipman did not think the bad weather was a legitimate excuse for his team to not play as well as he thought they should have.

"The conditions weren't good, but a lot of teams played better [in the first round]", he said. "It wasn't a very good round."

Charles Sacks '11 led the Judges in round one with a 78 and again in the second round with a 76, bringing his total to 154. He finished 10th overall, seven strokes behind the leader, senior Pat Pio from Nichols College. Sacks was happy with his performance but noted that he was just focusing on playing "better bad golf" because of the poor conditions.

Despite his team-leading low score, Sacks had his struggles, especially on the fourth hole, where he double-bogeyed twice in his only attempts at the hole."I was four-over[-par] for the tournament on that hole and nine-under[-par] overall, so a lot of my strokes were lost from there."

"[Sacks] played really well for the conditions on Saturday, and he played even better on Sunday," Shipman said. "It was a very good, solid score."

Sacks' teammates also noted his contribution to the squad's efforts last weekend.

"[Sacks] held the team together because in the first round we all played terribly," Aaron Cusato '12 said.

Cusato shot a 84 in the first round but then improved by six strokes to shoot a 78 the next day.

"I'm looking to bounce back, because I haven't played very well in the last few weeks," Cusato said. "I saw some progress in my game on Sunday, so hopefully I can build from that."

The Judges shot significantly better in the second round of the Championships as conditions improved. On day one, the team was also without Scott Beaulas '12, who was ill. Beaulas returned and played well the second day, shooting a 79. Lee Bloom '10 also improved from a 84 on Saturday to a 75 on Sunday.

Shipman recognized that even despite these improvements, the event did not contain some of the best competition and the Judges should have had a better outing.

"Some strong teams were there, but not the best for sure," he said.

The team struggled at its previous tournament as well, finishing a disappointing 16th at the Duke Nelson Invitational at Middlebury College Sept. 26. The team said it knows it has work to do in order to improve. "We really support each other during practice, but it's the individual things that we really need to work on," Cusato said.

"We really need to focus on everybody getting four good consistent scores every tournament," Sacks added.

The Judges are next in action Friday at the Rhode Island College Invitational.