The best junior golfers from the Philadelphia Section PGA
Junior Tour battled it out with the top juniors from the New Jersey Section PGA
in the 13th Jon M. Pritsch Cup, presented by Under Armour, on a
showery Friday at Saucon Valley Country Club’s Weyhill Course.
When the dust settled the two teams were knotted at 9-9 in
the Ryder Cup-style matches and, just as in the Ryder Cup, that meant that the
team holding the Cup, in this case New Jersey, retained the Pritsch Cup. That
gave the Garden State a 10-3 lead in the overall series.
New Jersey just held onto to the tie that enabled it to
retain the Pritsch Cup. There were six four-ball matches and those were split,
3-3. There were 12 singles matches and they were split, 6-6.
It might very well have come down to the foursome of New
Jersey’s Hunter Po and Kevin Ha and Philadelphia’s Christian Matt, a sophomore
at Wissahickon, and Matthew Zerfass, a sophomore at Emmaus.
Po and Ha claimed a 4 and 3 victory, but the two singles
matches were tighter. Po edge Matt, 2 and 1, and Zerfass took Ha to the 18th
hole before falling, 1-up.
Ha won the 14th and 15th holes to take
control of his match with Zerfass with a 2-up advantage. But Zerfass cut his
deficit in half by winning the 16th hole before halving the final
two holes.
New Jersey swept a four-ball point and two singles points in
two other foursomes. Franklin Zhu and Jeffrey Li edged Aronimink Golf Club’s
Nicholas Ciocca and Merion Golf Club’s John Bradbeer, 2 and 1, in their
four-ball match.
Zhu and Li then claimed identical 3 and 2 victories over
Ciocca and Bradbeer, respectively, in the singles matches.
The Jersey girls, Sammie Dolce and Sydney Ko, swept their Philadelphia
counterparts, Episcopal Academy junior Kathleen Mark and Rhianna Gooneratne of
Plymouth Meeting’s Team Gooneratne.
Dolce and Ko pulled out a 2 and 1 victory in the four-ball
match. Mark, who helped Episcopal make its second straight unbeaten run through
the Inter-Ac League in the spring, fell, 3 and 2, to Dolce. Ko rolled to a 6
and 5 victory over Rhianna Gooneratne, a Class of 2025 competitor whose game
just keeps improving.
Another member of Team Gooneratne, Dylan Gooneratne, a
junior at Plymouth-Whitemarsh, teamed with Devon Prep junior Ryan McCabe, who
finished in a tie for second in the PIAA Class AA Championship last fall, to
sweep their four-ball match and both singles matches.
Dylan Gooneratne and McCabe defeated Burton Fricke and Jason
Lee, 4 and 2, in their four-ball match. Dylan Gooneratne cruised to a 6 and 5
victory over Fricke and McCabe edged Lee, 2 and 1, in the singles matches.
Maybe the most impressive member of Team Philadelphia in the
Pritsch Cup was Matthew Normand of Lumberton, N.J., who played on the Delaware
I team, based out of Hartefeld National, that made it to the PGA Junior League
Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. last fall.
Normand teamed with Eric Miller of West Chester to roll to a
6 and 5 decision in their four-ball match with New Jersey’s Austin Liao and Jun
Chun. In the singles matches, Normand dominated Chun in an 8 and 7 decision and
Miller knocked off Liao, 3 and 1.
The Philadelphia Junior Tour also got a strong showing from
the pair of Spring-Ford junior Luke Watson and Muhlenberg senior Tyler Kipp.
The duo edged Paul Ulanich and Adam Varela, 2 and 1, in a four-ball match.
Watson and Kipp earned identical 4 and 3 victories over Ulanich and Varela,
respectively.
The Jon M. Pritsch Cup memorializes a standout junior player
who dreamed of a career in professional golf before being tragically taken by heart
disease at age 17 in May 1991. Jon M. Pritsch’s parents established the Jon M.
Pritsch Fund 25 years ago to keep their son’s dream alive and the fund has distributed more than $200,000 in scholarships to junior golfers wishing to pursue a
career in a golf-related field.
All the players in the Pritsch Cup field will receive
scholarship applications.
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