It seemed so familiar.

Just one week ago at the Windon Memorial Classic, Michigan senior Lion Kim stood at the tee of the 18th hole, needing a par to give his team its first victory of the season.

Kim drilled a 40-foot putt to give his team the win and earn his first career individual collegiate victory.

One week later, at the Rod Myers Invitational in Durham, NC, Kim found himself in a similar position. His team had already locked up a fourth-place finish, but with just one hole to play, Kim was one stroke behind North Carolina State freshman Albin Choi for the individual title. He would need a birdie on the par-four 18th to put the pressure on Choi and force a possible playoff hole.

Unfortunately for Kim, Monday's end result was far different from last week’s.

Faced with a 180-yard second shot, Kim pulled out his six iron and tried to hit a high cut into the green. But he pulled the shot left into the bunker, virtually eliminating his chance to birdie the hole and tie Choi for the lead.

“I really just wanted to give myself a good look at a birdie putt to at least try to tie for the tournament, but I just hit a poor second shot,” Kim said. “It was a risky shot, but it was either going to be I win or I don’t. I wasn’t really worried about finishing in the top-five or top-10.”

Kim went on to bogey the hole and finished the tournament tied for fifth with a final round 72 and a tournament score of 3-under 213, two strokes behind Choi.

“I hit a lot of iron shots, but I just couldn’t make any putts,” Kim said. “I honestly feel like I gave away the individual title of this tournament, but I’ll learn from this. The positive thing is that I still feel like I didn’t play my best and in the end I still contended for the tournament. It just shows that I can still contend for any tournament that I play in, even when I don’t have my ‘A’ game.”

In the first round on Sunday, Kim was not alone at the top of the leaderboard for Michigan. Junior Matt Thompson, sophomore Jack Schultz, sophomore Rahul Bakshi and freshman Joey Garber all posted scores under par, propelling the Wolverines into a second-place ranking, five strokes behind Iowa.

But Michigan could not keep its momentum going into the second round on Sunday, as Thompson, Garber and Bakshi all were plagued by costly double-bogeys. Kim was the only Wolverine under par and Michigan ended the round with a five-over 293.

“We had to count a 78 (in the second round),” Sapp said. “On a golf course like this and against teams that are playing well, if you’re counting a six-over par as one of your top four scores during the round, that’s going to hurt you.”

Despite the less-than-stellar second round, the Wolverines were still only 12 total strokes behind first-place Iowa. And a notable final round would have given Michigan a chance at the title.

But the 12-stroke deficit turned out to be too steep of a hill to climb, as the Hawkeyes ran away with the title with a tournament total of 13-under 851 — five strokes ahead of second-place North Carolina State and 10 strokes ahead of the fourth-place Wolverines.

“We wanted to come out and shoot a good score and make the leaders catch us,” Sapp said. “We played better than pretty much everybody in the field in the final round, but (Sunday) really hurt us. We needed the leaders to give us a little more help today.”

Though Michigan didn’t come away with the victory, the Wolverines had a positive tournament overall. Each player in the starting lineup posted at least one round under par, and that will no doubt give the team confidence it heads into the final two weeks of the fall season.

“We competed to win this week,” Sapp said. “We came up short, but we beat a lot of good teams in this field. We want to keep moving up and keep getting more trophies in the next couple of weeks.”