The Sooners found themselves trailing early, but ran out of holes to complete the comeback.

On a toasty Wednesday afternoon at Scottsdale, Arizona’s Grayhawk Golf Club, the Oklahoma Sooners were bested by the Pepperdine Waves, 3-2 in the 2021 NCAA Men’s Golf National Championship match.

OU’s Jonathan Brightwell rallied from an early deficit against Pepperdine’s Dylan Menante and held him off at the end to give Oklahoma its first point of the day, but the Waves did their thing for the majority of the title match.

Pepperdine’s Joe Highsmith handled Oklahoma’s Garett Reband with relative ease. After a strong start to the season, the OU senior just couldn’t seem to perform like he’s shown capable of down the stretch.

In probably the most shocking result of the day, Pepperdine’s William Mouw ended Quade Cummins’ day early in the anchor position. The Weatherford native was clutch for the Sooners in both the quarter and semifinals on Tuesday, but the same unfortunately could not be said for his outing on Wednesday.

Sooners freshman Ben Lorenz nearly pulled off the upset over Waves redshirt senior Clay Feagler, but in the end his valiant effort wasn’t enough as Pepperdine effectively won the championship on Feagler’s point. Lorenz was fantastic in the big stage, and his future is incredibly promising.

OU’s Logan McAllister defeated Pepperdine’s Joey Vrzich in their head-to-head matchup, and he did so in part by sinking this hole-in-one on the eighth in arguably the shot of the day. Amazingly, it was actually his second ace of the week, as he also nabbed one in stroke play on Monday.

Although it didn’t amount to another national championship trophy in the end for Oklahoma, getting back to this stage for Ryan Hybl and this team shows that the health of this program is strong and clearly on the right path. Stay tuned to watch how the Sooners respond on the course next season.

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