MURRAY, Ky. ? Jared Steger played two of three rounds under par to tie for second place and lead the Western Illinois men's golf team to a fourth place finish in the Murray State Invitational, which concluded Tuesday, Sep. 30.

Steger shot a 73 to start the tournament early Monday before rebounding later in the day with a four-under-par round of 67. The senior Leatherneck carried that momentum into Tuesday, firing another round of 67 to finish with a six-under-par 207.

"Jared had a very solid tournament. He's getting closer to winning a tournament individually all the time," Western coach Mel Blasi said.

Southern Illinois-Edwardsville's Neal McCarty won the individual title with a 12-under-par 201 while Murray State players Cameron Carrico and Robert Chris Griffin both tied with Steger.

Western came back from a slow first round to finish with a team score of 856. Entering the final round in fifth place, the Leathernecks shot the low team score, Tuesday, to move up to fourth.

"We were probably a little disappointed with how we finished as a team. We were 25 strokes behind Murray State after the first round. It was our first really bad round of the year," Blasi said. "We really outplayed them after that. We beat everybody the last two rounds, but it wasn't good enough to make up for such a poor first round."

Junior Kyle Peterman hovered around par in his first two rounds before shooting a two-under-par 69 in his final round. Peterman finished with a total of 215 to grab a tie of 15th place.

Senior Brian Scott finished with a total of 217 to tie for 21st while senior Jason Woll tied for 31st at 220 and junior Ryan Franks tied for 37th at 221 to round out the scoring.

Playing as an individual, senior Shane Kwaterski finished tied for 25th with a score of 218.

The host Racers won the team title with a score of 835.

The Leathernecks won't play again until Oct. 12 when they travel to Normal, Ill., to play in Illinois State's D.A. Weibring Intercollegiate.

"We made a nice rally today. We just need to put all three rounds together and that takes a lot of mental energy and focus," Blasi said. "We're getting there. We play at Illinois State in a couple of weeks. Hopefully that will be the time we put it all together."