Malvern Prep's Komancheck takes individual crown, helps Friars get share of team title with EA in PAISAA Championship

 

   Malvern Prep junior Colby Komancheck tamed the Radley Run Country Club layout outside of West Chester with a sparkling 3-under-par 69 Monday to capture the individual title in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) Championship.

   Komancheck’s individual win enabled the Friars to earn a tie in the team chase with Inter-Ac League champion Episcopal Academy, each team landing on 14-over-par 302.

   If you followed the Inter-Ac throughout the fall, a tie between Malvern Prep and EA would not be considered an unusual outcome.

   The two teams finished in a tie for first place in the opener of the six invitationals that comprise the Inter-Ac’s regular season, the Penn Charter Invitational at Huntingdon Valley Country Club.

   In the Malvern Prep Invitational at Waynesborough Country Club, Malvern Prep, EA and The Haverford School finished in a three-way tie for first place. The three teams, all deep and talented, were just that close throughout the regular season before the Churchmen pulled out their first league title since 2016 by a narrow margin.

   Defending champion Haverford School was right there Monday in the PAISAA Championship at Radley Run as the Fords finished just two shots behind the top two with a 304 total.

   The format was the same as a regular-season Inter-Ac invitational with four scores counting from five-man teams. The PAISAA, of course, was 18 holes as opposed to the nine-hole rounds for the Inter-Ac invitationals. Didn’t matter, the outcome was just as close as most of the invitationals were.

   Still, a share of the team title in the PAISAA Championship was a nice consolation prize for Malvern Prep, which came oh-so-close to capturing the Inter-Ac title.

   It was a nice gold medal for Komancheck, who has been one of the Inter-Ac’s top players throughout his career at Malvern Prep. Komancheck is the son of Jamie and Kelly Komancheck, the husband-wife team of PGA professionals that runs the pro shop at the RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve.

   Komancheck, who qualified for the Boys Junior PGA Championship in the summer at Purdue’s Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex in West Lafayette, Ind., was very much in contention for the title in last week’s Bert Linton Invitational for the Inter-Ac’s individual championship at The 1912 Club, but finished in a tie for third place, two shots behind EA juniors Liam Crowley and Arthur Hampel, who battled it out for the crown in a playoff.

   EA junior Freddy Hartmann, who topped the individual points list during the Inter-Ac’s regular season, finished two shots behind Komancheck in second place with a 1-under 71. Komancheck and Hartmann are the only two players who finished under par at Radley Run.

   Hartmann also had shared third place with Komancheck and Komancheck’s Malvern Prep teammate, senior Davis Conaway, in last week’s Bert Linton at The 1912 Club, the trio landing on 4-over 74.

   Conaway, who will join the program at Richmond at the end of next summer, shared third place Monday at Radley Run with The Haverford School senior duo of Sean Curran, the defending PAISAA individual champion, and Nicky Nemo, each posting a 2-over 74.

   It was the end of a couple of decorated scholastic careers for both Conaway and Curran, who will join the program at Penn in the Ivy League at the end of next summer.

   Conaway grabbed the title in the Bert Linton in dramatic fashion as a freshman at Llanerch Country Club in 2022 and was always a contender in the three Bert Lintons that followed.

   A year ago, Curran completed an unprecedented sweep for an Inter-Ac golfer, topping the points list in the regular season, capturing the title in the Bert Linton at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club and claiming the crown in the PAISAA at Radley Run. Curran will still tee it up in a Haverford School-EA Day dual match, a longstanding tradition in which the two schools square off in all the fall sports. Pretty sure that is next weekend.

   In the summer, Curran defeated his teammate and Merion Golf Club clubmate, Nemo, at Merion’s West Course in the match-play final to capture the title in the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Junior Boys’ Championship, an event with more than 100 years of golf history.

   Crowley, who defeated his teammate Hampel on the first hole of a playoff last week to capture the title in the Bert Linton, and Hampel again finished tied at Radley Run as they were two of the four players who shared sixth place, each signing for a 5-over 77.

   They were joined at 5-over by another EA teammate, Jimmy Warmkessel, one of the Churchmen’s senior co-captains, and Germantown Academy sophomore Brayden Vargas.

   Rounding out the top 10 in the individual standings was a group of five players tied for 10^th place at 6-over 78. Included in that group was Will Krietsch, the other senior co-captain for Inter-Ac champion Episcopal Academy, the Haverford School duo of senior William Forman and junior Quinn Gallagher, Penn Charter junior Jack Sheward and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s Finn Cooper.

   That meant all five EA players were at 78 or better with Hartmann’s 71 and the 77s tallied by Crowley, Hampel and Warmkessel the counters and Krietsch’s 78 getting tossed.

   Malvern Prep’s counters came from Komancheck’s 69, Conaway’s 74, senior Noah Brand’s 79 and senior Thomas Ploszay’s 80 with senior Pat Duda’s 81 getting thrown out. Conaway, Ploszay and Duda were the captains for a really solid group of Friars this season.

   The Inter-Ac dominated the proceedings in the PAISAA Championship as Germantown Academy finished in fourth place, 13 shots behind Haverford School with a 317 total, Springside Chestnut Hill was fifth with a 326 total and Penn Charter rounded out the top six finishers in sixth with a 340 total.

   A couple of days earlier, Malvern Prep’s Conaway claimed the title in the Inter-Ac Match Play Championship, which was held at Waynesborough, the Friars’ home course.

   The 16-player field included the top 12 finishers from the Inter-Ac’s regular-season points standings and the top four finishers at the Bert Linton who were not among the top 12 during the regular season.

   Two of those four wild cards, Malvern Prep’s Brand and EA’s Warmkessel, joined Conaway and recently crown Bert Linton champion Crowley of EA, in the final four players who competed for the title on the back nine at Waynesborough.

   Conaway inched in front of Crowley by making a birdie at Waynesborough’s tough, 220-yard, par-3 17^th hole and defeated Crowley for the title when they both made par at Waynesborough’s finishing hole.