BELLINGHAM, Wash. – Tyler Ashman came into the third and final round of the Western Washington Invitational sitting in a tie for eighth place. Eighteen rounds later at the 6,610-yard, par-72 Western Washington Invitational, the senior came out the medalist winner.
 
The Wildcats combined a team score of 879 placed them fourth in the team leaderboard. Simon Fraser took the team win with a 9-over 873.
 
Ashman matched his career-low 67 in the final round to leap seven spots, including teammate and day three leader Dakota Ochoa, to win his first tournament since sharing the medalist trophy at the HPU Shark Shootout last year.
 
He was near perfect, scoring a 4-under 33 in the front-9 and went one-under par in the back-9. His only miss was in the 15^th hole, where he bogie the par-4.
 
The 212 score was one stroke enough to beat Northwest Nazarene's Kasey Gaff, who was second entering the day.
 
Ochoa, who started the day in first place, finished with a 4-over 75 to end the tournament with a 215, placing him fifth. After he eagled the first hole, Ochoa was cruising along until he ran into trouble in the ninth hole, where he double bogie to finish the front-9 1-under. He was only able to make par six times in the back-9.
 
Cooper Hambrick scored a season-best 73 in the third round, having made three birdies and coming up even in 11 different holes. Noaki Easterday struggled through the first nine holes but improved in the back-9, scoring a 2-under to end his day with a 74. Giuliano Kaminski rounded out the Wildcats with an 80 result.
 
Chico State will welcome 12 teams to the Butte Creek Country Club for the Wildcat Invitational. The teams will play 36 holes on Monday and 18 more on Tuesday.