The top junior players from the Philadelphia Section PGA and
the New Jersey Section PGA gathered Friday at Hamilton Farm Golf Club in
Gladstone, N.J. for the Jon M. Pritsch
Cup, a Ryder Cup-style competition presented by Under Armour.
As the holders of the Pritsch Cup, the Philadelphia juniors
needed only to score nine points to retain the Cup and that’s how the battle
ended, in a 9-9 draw. It was the second straight win for Philadelphia, which
had dropped the first eight editions of the Pritsch Cup. Philadelphia will try
to make it three in a row when the competition returns to Philadelphia in 2017 at
Gulph Mills Golf Club.
Philadelphia picked up three-and-a-half points in the
fourball matches, getting victories from the pairs of Casey Oppenheimer of
Conshohocken and Elizabeth Beek of Blue Bell, J.T. Spina of Schwenksville and
Liam Ward of Malvern and Alex Mulrooney of Wilmington, Del. and Carson Baca of
York. Nikita Romanova of Wilmington and Akhil Giri of Moorestown, N.J. picked
up what turned out to be a crucial half-point by halving their match with New
Jersey’s Max Sorger of Montclair, N.J. and Brandon Valvano of Franklin Lakes,
N.J.
Philadelphia won five-and-a-half points in the singles
matches, getting victories from Spina, Romanov, Oppenheimer, Mulrooney and Bacha.
Again, Philadelphia got a crucial half-point when Beek finished all square in
her match with New Jersey’s Tiya Chowdary of Montgomery, N.J.
New Jersey picked up two wins in the fourball matches from the duos of Colin Peters of Mendham, N.J. and Randall Lazzaro of Colts
Neck, N.J. and Ben Steenland of Spring Lake, N.J. and Max Johnson of
Flemington, N.J. as well as the half-point earned by Sorger and Valvano.
New Jersey got singles wins from Alexander Imperatore of
Summit, N.J., Lazzaro, Peters, Valvano, Steenland and Johnson and that
half-point from Chowdary for finishing all square against Beek.
Rounding out Team Philadelphia were Andrew Forjan of York,
Jonathan Lumley of Royersford, Buddy Hansen IV of Blue Bell and Caleb Ryan of
Norristown.
Rounding out Team New Jersey were Tyler Galantini of West
Orange, N.J., Clement Shao of Warren, N.J., Julia McLaughlin of Princeton, N.J.
and Pat Ryan of Maplewood, N.J.
The Jon M. Pritsch Cup is played in memory of Jon M.
Pritsch, who died of heart disease at age 17 in 1999. Pritsch was a top junior
golfer who dreamed of playing professional golf. To keep his dream alive, his parents
began a scholarship fund that has contributed more than $175,000 to deserving
scholarship recipients. Each Pritsch Cup participant receives a scholarship
application.
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