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SAN ANTONIO — It didn’t take St. Mary’s freshman Kirby Gorzell long to reach the top. And now that he has, he’ll undoubtedly want to stay here.

Gorzell, a San Antonio native, climbed the leaderboard in Tuesday’s final round to capture the Ryan Palmer Foundation Invitational individual title, shooting a 1-under-par 70 to erase a five-stroke deficit and claim the first title of his collegiate career.

Gorzell, competing in just his third tournament as a Rattler, shot 209 for the tournament and overtook St. Edward’s Jose Hernandez for the title while also helping the Rattlers claim third place as a team.

Chris Contreras (Jr., San Antonio) finished in a tie for 17th place for the Rattlers after shooting 216, while Alex Bissaro (Fr., San Antonio) shot 216 to tie for 27th place. Matthew Van Winkle (So., Castroville, Texas) shot 221 and Shawn Bennett (Jr., Marion, Texas) shot 222.

Gorzell became the 14th Rattler to win a tournament title.

St. Mary’s University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men’s basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men’s golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men’s golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary’s also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary’s student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.stmarytx.edu/athletics.