No. 6 South Carolina finished round one of the NCAA Bremerton Regional at Gold Mountain in Washington in 6th place with a total of 288 (E). The Gamecocks went into the tournament as the No. 1 seed among a field of very tough competition.
Current SEC Champion Matt NeSmith finished his day at 1 under par, tied for 14th. Teammate Sean Kelly also sits in 14th place. They are five strokes behind the leader, Sean Crocker from Southern California, who finished 6 under.
Will Starke and Will Murphy were evenly matched throughout the day and both finished round one at one over par, tied for 32rd.
Caleb Sturgeon struggled on the front 9, but finished his day at 5 over par, tied for 55th.
UAB leads after round one with a total of 280 (-8), with TCU and Southern California tied for second with a total of 281 (-7) and Iowa State and Washington tied for fourth with a total of 287 (-1).
Reed Hrynewich of Michigan hit a hole-in-one on the 16th hole, the first and only one of the round. Hrynewich finished the day at even par, with Michigan tied for 8th with Pepperdine.
The Gamecocks will try to make up some ground on Friday in the second round to get into the top five. The regional concludes on Saturday, where the top five teams and the low individual not on those teams will advance to the Championship later this month. South Carolina is trying to make it to the Championship for the third consecutive season.