COON RAPIDS, Minn. — On paper, the Saint Mary's University men's golf team enjoyed one of its most consistent tournament's of the season at the MIAC Golf Championships.

After all, when you consider that: SMU's final scores were all within five strokes of each other; their second-day score of 315 was one of the best 18-hole performances of the season; and only one score the entire weekend was above an 82, and you'd have to figure coach Tom Farren was sporting a rather large grin when he left the Bunker Hills Golf Course Saturday afternoon.

He was — sort of.

After all, while the Cardinals' scores were consistent, they weren't consistently low. With only two rounds in the 70s, the Cardinals weren't able to make up as much ground as Farren had hoped, as SMU settled for a sixth-place showing in the season-ending, 10-team event.

"I really thought coming in that we could finish in the top four — and I still think, had we played up to our potential, we could have," said Farren, whose team was just two strokes back of Concordia's fourth-place 640 total. "There were so many teams bunched up in the middle of the pack. We just needed to bring our scores down a bit and we would have reached that top four."

Gustavus, which had four golfers among the top seven, won the team title with an 11-over 587 total. St. John's, fueled by medalist Josh Sherlin (70-70—140), was second at 601, followed by St. Thomas (608), Concordia (640), Augsburg (641), SMU (642), Bethel (644), Carleton (648), St. Olaf (654) and Macalester (677).

"We didn't play real well the first day, but we were still in the hunt, because none of the teams were lighting it up," said Farren, whose team's sixth-place finish was one better than a year ago, and equaled its best conference finish since 1997. "We played much better (on Saturday), but we still weren't able to put up the type of numbers these guys are capable of shooting.

Just a week after posting a school-record 308 in the first round of the Twin Cities Classic, the Cardinals struggled to a 327 in Friday's opening round of the conference championships.

Curtis Nosal (Omaha, Neb.) was the team's low scorer with an opening-round 81. Mark Miller (Winona, Minn.), Eric Thom (Portland, Ore.) and Scott Savage (Mahtomedi, Minn.) all finished with 82s, while D.J. Schweitzer (McHenry, Ill.) struggled to an 87.

Miller rebounded with a team-low four-over 76 on Saturday, giving him a 158 total. Thom tallied an 80 and Nosal an 81 as the two finished with 162 totals, while Savage recorded an 81 for a 163, and Schweitzer rebounded with a second-day 78 and a 165 total.