The goal for Brandon Hermreck and Zechariah Potter at last year’s Kansas Golf Association Four-Ball Championship at Alvamar Golf Club was simply to make the cut of 32 teams that make up the match-play bracket.

After earning the No. 8 seed based on two days of stroke-play qualifying rounds, the duo from Wichita State University went on to win the tournament.

“We really had no expectations from making the match play,” Hermreck said. “But I’d say the match play was harder than during the stroke play because it was win or go home.”

The tandem will return to Alvamar today to begin their title defense – a phrase Hermreck said he and his partner aren’t using.

“We don’t think about that because if you do, you’re probably not going to get it,” Hermreck said. “But the expectations are a lot higher this year even though we try not to let them be, because if you do you’re going to get caught up in the wrong kind of things.”

Hermreck and Potter – juniors-to-be at Wichita State – kept Gary Woodland, now a graduating senior on the Kansas University golf team, from being a member of the championship team for the third consecutive year by defeating Woodland and his partner, former KU golfer Luke Trammell.

“In the beginning of that match, obviously they had extra confidence based on the fact that Woodland had won it the two previous years,” Potter said. “So he came into the match with the thought that he knew if he got up early he’d be able to probably take it to us and it would be hard for us to get a chance to come. Fortunately, we were able to start off with two birdies on the first three holes and that kind of started the match off pretty even.”

Woodland and Trammell actually won the first hole of the 36-hole championship round, but on the par-5 second, Potter prevented the KU pair from going 2-up by knocking down a birdie putt to halve the hole.

The following hole went to Potter and Hermreck to square the match. Then three holes later, Woodland and Trammell bogeyed the par-4 sixth and the WSU team went 1-up. Potter and Hermreck never relinquished the lead and went on to win, 5-and-4.

“Once they bogeyed six, we really thought that we had a good shot and we kind of kept applying the pressure,” Hermreck said.

But Hermreck and Potter were already used to working out of an early deficit, after having trailed for a majority of both their quarterfinal and semifinal matches.

In both rounds, the duo never led during the match until the 14th hole, before going on to win in the quarterfinals, 2-and-1, and advancing to the finals with a 1-up victory in the semis.

“There’s no possible way to play your best golf for the entire time,” Potter said. “So for that stretch we were just trying to hang close, and then all of a sudden it seemed like we hit the great shot when we needed to.”

With a field of 79 teams, the qualifying rounds will have a morning and afternoon wave with the morning session starting at 8 a.m. and the afternoon groups teeing off at 12:30 p.m. The defending champs are scheduled to hit the front nine at 8:11 a.m. today, with a 12:41 p.m. start from the No. 10 tee box Wednesday.