The fall season comes to a close for the SIU men’s golf team as it finished the Double Tree Intercollegiate Tournament at SIU-Edwardsville with some of the top individual performances.

The Salukis finished the tournament Tuesday with a fifth-place finish as a team, but juniors Brandon Cauldwell and Jake Erickson both finished in the top 10 individually.

Erickson, who finished in eighth place, said the team didn’t play to its fullest potential and could have done a better job than it did.

“It wasn’t necessarily what we were looking for,” Erickson said. “We kind of got off to a bad start in the first round.  None of us really played our best. Once you have a bad first round like that it’s hard to recover from it.”

Erickson individually scored a 78-75-71 with a total of 224 points for the Salukis.

Head coach Leroy Newton said the team seemed to struggle a bit in the beginning but soon played better, even in the windy conditions.

“We were disappointed in the way we played the first round, but we bounced back in the second and third rounds,” Newton said, according to the Saluki Athletics website. “We found out that we can play better than a lot of teams in the wind, though. We played a great round in the wind today.”

Cauldwell tied for sixth place with a 75-72-76 score, a total of 223 Saluki points. He has finished in the top 10 four times in the five tournaments he played this season.

Junior Jeffrey Miller finished at 30th place with 235 points, sophomore George Tate finished in 37th with 239, senior Joe Goelzhauser finished in 48th with 243 and senior Jared Harp placed 38th with 240 points.

Newton said the team is content with the fall season finishing with one tournament win and four top five team finishes.

The SIU women’s golf team was also in action as it traveled to Tennessee State University and placed sixth out of 13 teams at the Blue Raider Invitational Tuesday.

The Salukis totaled 921 points overall, with senior Margaret Gilley leading the way at 227 points. Gilley finished in 16th place.

Finishing with 230 points apiece, both sophomore Cassie Rushing and junior Shaina Rennegarbe tied for 21st place.

Women’s head golf coach Alexis Mihelich said she was happy with how Rennegarbe played in the game’s three rounds.

“She played her best tournament all season, and her putting was really solid with her hard work paying off on the greens,” Mihelich said, according to Saluki Athletics website.

Sophomore Ashleigh Rushing finished in 46th place with a total of 238 for the Salukis. Other placers include senior Alisha Matthews, who placed 35th and scored 234; freshman Ryann Gilley, who placed 50th at 156; and senior Jennifer Bernhardt, who placed 69th at 156.

The women will continue play  March 3-4 at the New Wave Communications Racer Classic at Murray State, and the men won’t tee off again until Feb. 19.