Making a bid for their first conference championship crown since 2006, the SMU Mustangs Men’s golf team could not withstand a second round rally by Houston.

The Mustangs took home second place, but were certainly left with a sour taste after letting the victory slip through their grasp.

“This will hurt for a while,” Head Coach Josh Gregory said to smumustangs.com. “We put ourselves in position to win and unfortunately we gave this one away. This will hopefully serve as great motivation for the NCAA regionals.”

SMU entered day two up by seven strokes, but Houston took the lead after shooting a team score of 280.

Bryson Dechambeau also had a shot at the individual title for the Mustangs but let it slip away on the back nine, finishing second.

Dechambeau was 10 under par at one point during the front nine, but faltered on the back nine finishing at six under par total.

Another Mustang that had a strong week was Mario Clemens. Clemens however also let it slip away on the back nine, bogeying three of his final five holes to fall back into fifth place.

The Lady Mustangs just could not quite get the momentum going in the C-USA championships as they finished in fourth place.

Although the team struggled, Coach Jeanne Sutherland believes that this was great preparation for the NCAA regionals in the coming weeks.

“We got in some really good work on our short games and our wedges,” Sutherland said to smumustangs.com. “It’s been windy back home, and we got a chance to play without as much wind and get good practice.”

One of the bright spots of the tournament was, once again, the fantastic play of Felicia Espericueta.

“She played great golf,” Sutherland said to smumustangs.com. “She went ahead and went right at the pin. We had nothing to lose and she was aggressive. She was great.”

The men’s and women’s teams will look to use the disappointment of not winning the Conference USA tournament as motivation when they try their luck at the NCAA regionals this coming May.