Villanova hopes to heat up at Big East tourney

   The college golf scene is heading for a big conference tournament weekend as the countdown to the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course reaches just 50 days to go.

    If the players aren’t thawed out yet, a trip to Orlando, Fla., for the season-ending Big East Tournament should do the trick for the Villanova men’s golf team.

   The Wildcats survived winter-like conditions at Penn State last weekend to finish ninth in the team standings at 914 in the Rutherford Intercollegiate.

   Villanova was led, as it has been all spring, by its senior co-captains, two-time Haverford School All-Delco Michael Kania and Steve Skurla.

  Kania had rounds of 76, 73 and 79 and Skurla had rounds of 75, 75 and 78 on Penn State’s Blue Course as the two landed on the same 228 total in a tie for 30^th. Playing 36 holes with temperatures hovering around 40 and the wind howling Saturday could not have been much fun.

   Villanova posted team totals of 303, 301 and 310 for a 914 score that left it a shot back of a Georgetown and 14 shots back of sixth-place Connecticut, two teams the Wildcats will run into at the Big East Tournament.

   Binghamton, with rounds of 302, 301 and 287 and an 890 total, won the team title by five shots over Xavier. Host Penn State shared third place with Big Ten rival Minnesota at 896.

   Xavier’s Tanapol Vattanapisit (73-73-70) won the individual title in a playoff with Penn State’s JD Dornes (73-69-74) after the two finished tied at 3-over 216.

   Rounding out the scoring for Villanova were sophomore Teddy Brennan (77-77-76), a Haverford School product, and senior Derek Jones (75-78-77), who were among three players who finished in a tie for 34^th at 230; and grad student Cory Siegfried (77-76-80), the third member of the Wildcats’ Haverford School Connection, who finished in a tie for 44^th at 233.

Purdue the runnerup at Lady Buckeye

   It probably wasn’t appreciably warmer at the 6,268-yard, par-72 Scarlet Course at the Ohio State University for the Lady Buckeye Invitational, but No.-10 ranked Purdue fought through the chilly conditions to finish second in the team standings behind the effort of individual champion Laura Gonzalez-Escallon, the senior from Belgium.

   Gonzalez-Escallon tuned up for the defense of her individual title at this weekend’s Big Ten Tournament in French Lick, Ind. by firing rounds of 73, 73 and 75 for a 5-over 221 total that was three shots clear of Amy Meier of the host Buckeyes.

   The Boilermakers again got a solid supporting effort from sophomore Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion at Chichester, who shared fifth place with teammate Paula Reto, the senior from South Africa. Kan had rounds of 77, 74 and 76 to finish tied with Reto (80-73-74) at 227.

   Purdue had the low team round of the tournament, a 295 total in the middle round. Combined with an opening-round 310 and a final-round 306, it left the Boilermakers at 911, seven shots back of Michigan State, a team they will see again in French Lick.

   Purdue’s other scorers included redshirt senior Kishi Sinha (80-75-81), who finished in a tie for 26^th at 236, freshman Brooke Beegle (81-78-86), who finished 48^th at 245 and freshman Margaux Vanmol (84-79-83), who finished in a tie for 49^th a shot back of Beegle at 246.

   Kan’s old rival on the high school postseason trail, Jackie Calamaro, who won the PIAA title in 2009 as a senior at Radnor, also teed it up with Illinois at the Lady Buckeye.

   Calamaro, a redshirt sophomore, had rounds of 86, 84 and 80 and finished in a tie for 56^th at 250. The Illini were led by another redshirt sophomore, Samantha Postillion (78-80-78) and junior Ember Schuldt (77-79-80), who were among the nine players, including Purdue’s Sinha, in the group tied for 26^th at 236.

   Illinois had rounds of 315, 320 and 321 for a 956 total that left them in 11^th place. The Illini, too, will be headed for French Lick.

Shattuck continues to shine

   Delaware freshman Braden Shattuck, who was the 2011-12 Daily Times Player of the Year as a senior at Sun Valley, again paced the Blue Hens with his seventh-place finish at the Navy Spring Invitational, helping them finish seventh in a stacked 21-team field.

   Shattuck matched par over the 6,611-yard, par-71 Naval Academy Golf Course in Sunday’s second round to go along with an opening-round 77 to finish in a tie for seventh at six-over 148. It was Shattuck’s sixth top-10 finish of the season and his fourth straight, the longest run of top-10s by a Blue Hen since Justin Martinson had five straight in the spring of 2010.

   Delaware’s second-round 303 was three shots better than its opening-round 306 and left it at 609. Virginia and Penn shared the top spot at 599.

   Shattuck and the Blue Hens will be in action at the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament this weekend at St. James Plantation in Southport, N.C.

   Bucknell senior Dan Bernard, a Malvern Prep product who plays out of Aronomink Golf Club, had rounds of 73 and 86 to finish in a tie for 63^rd at 159. The Bison, after an impressive opening-round 304, fell back with a second-round 331 to finish 16^th at 635.