AMY WINKLER/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA junior Ricky Barnes tees off yesterday in the Ping-Arizona Intercollegiate at The Raven. Barnes finished fourth individually to help the Wildcats finish fourth overall.

Playing in near-perfect Southern Arizona weather at a course in near-perfect condition - The Raven at Sabino Springs - the UA men's golf team missed a perfect opportunity for its first victory of the season.

The Wildcats finished at a season-low 1-over-par as a team, placing them in a tie for fourth place at the PING-Arizona Intercollegiate, five strokes behind tournament winners Fresno State. The Bulldogs finished strong, shooting a combined 10-under par the final two rounds of the tournament.

Individually, the UA golf team posted a few season lows. Junior Ricky Barnes finished fourth, posting his lowest three-round score of the year with a 6-under-par 207 after struggling for most of the fall season.

UA assistant head coach John Knauer said the Stockton, Calif. native should always play this well.

"This is exactly what we expect out of them all the time," Knauer said. "Every time any of our players tee it up, I expect them to shoot par or better."

Sophomore Chris Nallen, who up to this point in the season has been the team's most consistent performer, continued to post good scores. Nallen finished in a tie for fifth with a 4-under-par 209. This included his season-low individual round of a 5-under-par 66 in the second round Monday afternoon.

But for this Wildcat team to start posting wins instead of merely coming close, Knauer sakd they will need a better team effort.

"This tournament we had a real top-heavy performance," Knauer said. "You have to have that fourth score. We just didn't get it done towards the bottom. We are mad because we were so close, being so close can almost be worse."

The Wildcats also received strong play from some of the players playing for the junior varsity team in this week's tournament. The JV team finished 13th in a field of 19 Division I teams.

The performance of his players didn't surprise Knauer.

"We are just that good," Knauer said. "Top to bottom we are a deep team. We recruit a lot of top players and only so many are allowed to play each week."

Two players who competed on the JV team this week but Knauer said should expect increased playing time in the future are junior Brian Woolf and freshman Kipp Riehle. Both players finished the tournament with a 1-under-par 212.

If either Riehle's or Woolf's scores had counted for the varsity team, the Wildcats would have been the winners this week.

UA will have another chance for its first team victory of the season in Honolulu, Hawaii at the John Burns Invitational Feb. 20-22.