Spring finally arrived here in the Northeast just in time for the inaugural Dragon Match Play Invitational, a two-day event hosted by Drexel at Green Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill, the home course of Ben Feld, the Dragons’ head coach.
I don’t have complete results, but Drexel did claim a 3-2 victory over Rhode Island in Tuesday’s match-play final played in temperatures approaching 80 degrees.
It was the fifth win of the wraparound 2023-2024 season for Drexel, including a 4-for-4 run during the fall that included a victory in the City 6 Championship at Sunnybrook Golf Club, just up Joshua Road a ways from Green Valley.
The Dragon Match Play began with 36 holes of stroke-play qualifying for match play on solar eclipse Monday.
Rhode Island’s Bryson Richards, a graduate student from Plainfield, Vt., stole the show in Monday’s qualifying for match play as he fired a breathtaking 7-under-par 64 over the 6,744-yard, par-71 William Flynn design at Green Valley to claim medalist honors with an 8-under 134 total.
Richards had opened with a solid 1-under 70 and then went off in the afternoon with a round that included eight birdies.
Drexel’s Drue Nicholas, a senior from Egg Harbor Township, N.J. who has been the Dragons’ best player for the last two seasons, was the runnerup to Richards in qualifying, finishing two shots behind him. Nicholas led Drexel to the top spot in the team standings and the top seed in match play as the Dragons added a 2-under 282 in the afternoon to their opening round of 1-over 285 for a 1-under 567 total.
Rhode Island finished in second place, four shots behind Drexel at 3-over 571 with its Atlantic 10 rival St. Bonaventure another three shots behind the Rams in third place with a 6-over 294 total.
The Rams, behind Richards’ scintillating 64, posted a 4-under 280 in the afternoon, matching the low team round of the day, after opening with a 7-over 291. The Bonnies, behind a second round of 4-under 67 by Michael Bucko, a sophomore from Johnson City, N.Y., matched Rhode Island’s 4-under 280 in the afternoon after opening with a 10-over 294.
Rhode Island’s Richards was right in the middle of things in the final as the Rams and Drexel each had two points on the board and Richards jumped on the Dragons’ Griffin Mitchell, a senior from New Albany, Ohio, leaving Mitchell 5-down after eight holes.
But Mitchell clawed his way all the way back to even when he won the 14th hole and then pulled out a 1-up victory with a par on the 18th hole for the clinching point.
Nicholas dominated in his match, needing just 11 holes to put a point on the board for Drexel.
Josiah Tong, a freshman from Canada, earned a point for Rhode Island with a victory over Oscar Maxfield, a graduate student from Salt Lake City, Utah. Seb Carlsson, another Rhody freshman from Narragansett, R.I., accounted for the Rams’ other point by knocking off Caleb Taylor, a sophomore from Woodbine, Md.
In Tuesday morning’s semifinals, Drexel reached the final with a 4-1 victory over City 6 rival and Atlantic 10 representative La Salle, getting match wins from Tafadzwa Nyamukondiwa, a senior from Zimbabwe who needed just 11 holes to close out his opponent, Mitchell, Nicholas and Maxfield.
La Salle, coming off a team title in the Battle at Rum Pointe at the Rum Pointe Seaside Golf Links in Berlin, Md., earned a spot in the semifinals by finishing in fourth place in qualifying for match play with a 16-over 584 total. The Explorers added a 7-over 281 in Monday afternoon’s second round to their opening round of 9-over 293.
In the other semifinal, it was Richards coming up big for Rhode Island as he prevailed on the first hole of a playoff to give the Rams a victory over St. Bonaventure.
Senior Andrew Wallace, a two-time PIAA Class AAA qualifier during a standout scholastic career at Harriton, competed as an individual for Drexel in Monday’s 36 holes of stroke play and finished in a tie for fifth place in the individual standings, his best performance as a Dragon.
Wallace recorded a solid 3-under 68 in Monday afternoon’s second round. Pretty sure Green Valley is Wallace’s home course.
Feld used the occasion of the home event to honor his four players who are finishing up their Drexel careers this spring, including Nyamukondiwa, Maxfield, Liam Hart, winner of the 2017 PIAA Class AAA Championship as a junior at Holy Ghost Prep, and Bank Apinyawuttikul of Thailand following Tuesday’s title match.
Drexel is scheduled for a dual match with Division II South Carolina-Beaufort April 18 at Oldfield Country Club in Okatie, S.C. on its way to the Coastal Athletic Association Championship, which tees off April 21 at Dataw Island’s Cotton Dike Course on St. Helena’s Island, S.C.
The winner of the CAA Championship earns an automatic bid to one of the six NCAA regionals.
A year ago, when it was still known as the Colonial Athletic Association, Drexel finished in third place at the conference championship with Nicholas earning runnerup honors in the individual standings.
Rhode Island will tee it up in The Rutherford Intercollegiate, hosted by Penn State this weekend at its Blue Course, before competing in the A-10 Championship, which tees off April 26 at Grand Cypress Golf’s Links Course in Orlando, Fla.
Fifth place in the team standings in qualifying for match play went to Robert Morris, out of the Horizon League, as the Colonials added an 8-over 292 in the afternoon to their opening round of 294 to finish two shots behind La Salle with a 586 total.
Robert Morris went 2-0 in Tuesday’s consolation bracket, defeating Lafayette’s B team, 3-2, in the morning and Lafayette’s A team, 4-1, in the afternoon. Lafayette plays out of the Patriot League.
Fifth-year player Alex Seelig, a three-time PIAA Class AAA qualifier at Exeter and a Stonewall looper when he wasn’t playing golf the last couple of summers, finished in a tie for 30th place for Robert Morris in qualifying for match play. Seelig added a 3-over 74 in the afternoon to his opening-round 77 for a 9-over 151 total.
Rounding out the eight-team field was Towson, a CAA rival of Drexel. The Tigers finished in sixth place in the stroke-play qualifying, three shots behind Robert Morris at 21-over 589, followed by Lafayette’s A team in seventh at 594 and Lafayette’s B team in eighth at 616.
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