Jaster, Susanin are Darthmouth;s top finishers in Ivy tourneys

   A couple of All-Delco golfers had strong showings for the Dartmouth men’s and women’s teams at last weekend’s Ivy League tournaments held at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem.

   Sophomore Scott Jaster, the three-time Haverford School All-Delco, always seems to save his best stuff for the Ivy tourney. Jaster had rounds of 78, 75 and 75 to finish in a tie for 14^th at 228 and was the Big Green’s top finisher.

   Senior Charlie Edler (80-77-72) was another shot back of Jaster in a tie for 16^th at 229 for Dartmouth, which finished sixth in the team standings with rounds of 311, 306 and 304 for a 921 total.

With Austin Powell, a senior from Jupiter, Fla, firing a 5-under 67 over the challenging Grace Course at Saucon Valley in the final round, Penn surged to a one-shot victory over Princeton for the Quakers’ first Ivy team title since 2012.

   Penn’s final-round 287 was a 20-shot improvement on its opening-round 307 and, combined with a second-round 291, gave the Quakers an  885 total. Penn will represent the Ivy League in the NCAA regionals.

   Princeton was led by individual champion Quinn Prchal, a sophomore from Glenview, Ill., who had rounds of 75, 68 ad 67 for a 6-under 210 total that was three shots clear of Penn’s Powell, who opened with a 72 and added a second-round 74 before his sparkling final-round 67.

   One of Jaster’s old Inter-Ac League rivals, former Malvern Prep standout Michael Davis, had a strong showing for Princeton. Davis, a freshman whose home course is Aronimink Golf Club, had rounds of 73, 75 and 75 to finish in a tie for fifth with teammate Marc Hedrick (75-75-73), a freshman from Eincinits, Calif., at 223.

   On the women’s side, Jamie Susanin, the Radnor All-Delco who played a key role in the Raiders’s run to the 2012 PIAA Class AAA team title, was Dartmouth’s best finisher. The sophomore had an outstanding second-round 74 sandwiched by rounds of 85 and 82 for a 241 total that left her in a tie for 22^nd.

   Dartmouth struggled in the team race, finishing seventh with rounds of 344, 324 and 322 for a 990 total.

   Brown’s Christine Kim, a freshman from San Jose, Calif., claimed the individual title after finishing in a tie for first with Yale’s Marika Liu, a senior from Beverly Hills, Calif., at 227. Kim, who had rounds of 75, 77 and 75 won the title with a birdie on the first hole of a playoff. Liu closed strong with a final-round 73 to catch Kim and force the playoff.

   Liu and Yale fell a shot short of the individual title as Harvard, led by Anne Cheng, had rounds of 321, 299 and 303 for a 923 total. Cheng (81-75-74), a sophomore from Torrance, Calif., fnished in a tie for fourth at 230. Like Liu, Yale closed strong with a final-round 296, but fell a shot short.

   Penn, led by Sophia Chen, finished fifth in the team chase with rounds of 329, 311 and 307 for a 947 total. Chen, a sophomore from Thousand Oaks, Calif., had rounds of 77, 78 and 73 to finish third at 228, just a shot out of the playoff between Kim and Liu.

Villanova wraps up season; Berman completes solid freshman campaign

   We did manage to get in some highlights from the Big East Tournament in Wednesday’s print edition of the Daily Times, but it’s worth expanding on a little.

   It was a bit of a disappointing spring for Villanova, which finished last in the team chase at Callawassie Island Golf Club in Okatie, S.C. as the Big East tourney concluded Tuesday.

But it was a transition year for the Wildcats, who were led by sophomore Lucas Trim and freshman Zach Egermayer at the tourney. Trim, from Tampa, Fla, had rounds of 78, 79 and 74 and Egermayer, from Glen Rock, N.Y., had rounds of 80, 77 and 74 as both ended up among six players in a tie for 21^st at 15-over 231.

   Junior Luke Waggoner from Crystal Lake, Ill., had rounds of 77, 80 and 77 to finish in a tie for 28^th at 234 and a couple of freshmen, Andy Butler (81-83-79—243), from Oakmont, and Will Byrne (87-76-82—245), from McLean, Va., finished tied for 37^th and 39^th, respectively.

   The team scores were better with each round as Villanova went 316, 312 and 304 for a 932 total that left them 12 shots back of St. John’s and Creighton, who shared seventh place at 920.

   Villanova head coach James Wilkes had an underclassmen group teeing it up this week, three of them freshmen and one a sophomore, so his guys gained some valuable experience.

   Cole Berman, the Daily Times Player of the Year in each of his last two seasons at The Haverford School, wrapped up a solid freshman year at Georgetown as he joined Trim and Egermayer in that large group in a tie for 21^st at 231. Berman, a three-time Golf Association of Philadelphia Junior Player of the Year, had rounds of 78, 77 and 76 at Callawassie Island. They might be expecting Berman back to help out Philadelphia Cricket Club in the GAP team matches Sunday.

   Berman helped the Hoyas finish fifth in the team standings as they had rounds of 301, 308 and 306 for a 915 total.

   Georgetown was led by Sam Madsen (72-74-78—224), a freshman from Madison, Wis. who finished ninth. Gregory Podufal (75-80-74—229), a senior from Erie, finished in a tie for 16^th, and another freshman,  Jack Musgrave (76-77-78), from Chesterton, Ind., matched Berman’s 231 total and finished in that popular  tie for 21^st spot. That makes three freshmen among Georgetown’s top four finishers, so the future looks bright on the links in our nation’s capital.

   The individual title went to St. John’s Dylan Crowley, a senior from Los Angeles who had rounds of 72, 72 and 71 to finish at 1-under 215. He was matched at the figure by Marquette’s Patrick Sanchez (73-73-69), a junior from Mexico, but Crowley won the title on third hole of a playoff.

   Sanchez did lead Marquette to the team title and a berth in the NCAA regionals. Marquette had rounds of 304, 297 and 296 for an 897 total that was two shots better than DePaul (299-294-306—899).

A career best for Agnes Irwin's Lees; Notre Dame keeps rolling

   There was quite a bit going on on the Inter-Ac League girls scene Monday.

   Kaitlyn Lees, the outstanding freshman at Agnes Irwin, posted a career-best for nine holes, carding a 34 at Sunnybrook Golf Club to lead the Owls to a 275-301 victory over host Chestnut Hill Springside Academy.

   Lees won the Inter-Ac title as a seventh-grader two years ago and was the runnerup last year and her game continues to make big strides.

   Sunnybrook was the site of the 1978 U.S. Women’s Amateur, the last women’s amateur won by a Canadian, Cathy Sherk. It was also the amateur swan song for Hall of Famer Beth Daniel, who was denied a third U.S. Amateur title. I happened to be covering that Women’s Amateur as a fledgling sports reporter for another news organization. My memory is that Daniel fell in the semifinals under somewhat controversial circumstances involving a ground-under-repair ruling that did not go her way.

   Meanwhile, at Overbrook Golf Club Monday, Mary Jane Wetzel’s Notre Dame golf team continued to roll along.

   The Irish actually got a little bit of a challenge from Episcopal Academy, but with sophomore Meghan Fahey leading the way with a 5-over 40 on her home course, Notre Dame claimed a 218-243 victory. The result of that match should have been included in the high school roundup in the Daily Times print edition Tuesday as it appears Wetzel called it in, as she always does, but the result did not appear in the paper. It’s not the first result to fall through the cracks on a busy day of high school spring sports.

   Junior Maddie Keane added a 43, junior Maggie Cass had a 44, freshman Olivia Traynor had a 45 and sophomore Bridget Pyott had a 46.

   Notre Dame improved to 4-0 while winning their 44^th straight Inter-Ac League match. The Irish are six-time defending Inter-Ac League champions, including unbeaten runs through the league the last five seasons.

   Maddie Bacskai, an All-Delco field hockey player and the sister of Malvern Prep standout golfer Brendan, led the way for Episcopal with a 44.

Bullock takes fourth at Iron Valley

   The Philadelphia PGA Junior Tour made a stop in the Lebanon area Sunday at Iron Valley Golf Club, a Pete Dye design that opened in 2000.

   Radnor freshman Daniel Bullock carded an 85 over the 6,408-yard, par-72 Iron Valley layout to finish fourth in the 16-to-18 division. Adam Lowe of Telford took division honors with a 79.

   Chase Miller of Bernville led the way in the 13-to-15 division with the day’s best score, a 4-over 76. Aronimink Golf Club’s Billy Civitella finished fourth with an 89 and Johnny Hally of Havertown placed ninth with a 94.

   Caitlin Bullock, a junior at Radnor, was third in the girls 16-to-18 division with a 119. Olivia Raihl of Wernersville won the division with a 95.

   Casey Oppenheimer of Conshohocken topped the 13-to-15 division with a 93. Runnerup Grace Hickey posted a 100, a round that included a wedge shot at the 94-yard fifth hole that found the bottom of the cup for her first career hole-in-one.

   Ryan D’Ariano of West Chester bested the nine-holers with a 38. Michael Block of Villanova finished in a tie for 11^th with a 58.

Purdue close to home

   

   Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion at Chichester, and the rest of the Purdue Boilermakers, coming off a third-place finish in the Big Ten Tournament, don’t have far to travel for the NCAA Regionals as they’ll tee it up in the South Bend Regional next week.

   Kan, a senior, was joined on the All-Big Ten second team by teammates August Kim, a sophomore from Florida,  and Marta Martin, a freshman from Spain.  It was the third time in her four years at Purdue that Kan has appeared on one of the All-Big Ten teams.

   The regional will be played at the Warren Golf Course on the Notre Dame campus. Arizona is the top-seeded team at the regional with two ACC powers, Duke and Wake Forest, seeded second and fourth, respectively.

   Kan will likely cross paths with Wake Forest freshman Erica Herr, who, as a Council Rock North freshman in the fall of 2010, denied Kan a fourth straight District One title. Kan went on to win the big prize, the PIAA crown a few weeks later. Herr won the next two PIAA titles and nearly won a third as a senior in the fall of 2013 when a dramatic 25-foot eagle putt by Mount St. Joseph’s junior Isabella DiLisio found the hole to give her the title.

   I would argue that Herr, who is having a solid freshman season at Wake, is the top scholastic golfer in the relatively brief history of high school girls golf in Pennsylvania with Kan a close second.

   Kan and the Boilermakers are seeded ninth in the South Bend Regional. The top six teams and top three individuals who are not associated with the top six teams advance to the nationals.

   Once the swinging starts, the seeds won’t matter much, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Purdue outplays its seeding and is one of the six teams to advance to the nationals.

Kan finishes tied for ninth, Purdue takes third at Big Ten tourney

   With their two freshmen leading the way, Marta Martin of Spain and Linn Andersson, one of three Swedes on the roster, Purdue fell back a spot in the final standings, finishing third as the Big Ten Tournament wrapped up Sunday at The Fort Golf Course in Indianapolis.

   In her final appearance at the Big Ten tourney, senior Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion as a senior at Chichester, struggled a little with a 75, but still finished in a tie for ninth at 2-over 218.       

   Martin, who has emerged as the Boilermakers’ best player this spring, had a final-round 73 to end up at 1-over 217 and finish in a tie for fifth in the individual chase.

   Purdue flashed the kind of ability it possesses in the middle round Saturday as Swedish junior Anna Appert Lund fired a 3-under 69, Kan posted a flawless three-birdie, one-bogey 2-under 70, Swedish senior Johanna Tillstrom carded a 1-under 71, and Martin, Andersson and sophomore August Kim all posted 75s. It added up to a sparkling 285 as the Boilermakers creeped up to second in the team standings, just five shots behind Ohio St.

   It was fourth-best team round of the tournament as Ohio St. opened with a 281 and Northwestern opened with a 284 and then added another 284 in the final round that enabled the Wildcats to catch the Buckeyes for a share of the team title at 1-under 863. Purdue sandwiched rounds of 293 and 294 around that 285 to finish third at 872, nine shots back of the co-champions.

   Northwestern had a second-round 295 in between those two rounds of 284 while Ohio St. cooled off a little from that opening-round 281 with rounds of 292 and 290.

   Andersson’s final-round 73 matched Martin for Purdue’s low round of the day Sunday. It was also the rookie’s lowest career round and gave her a career-best 54-hole total of 226. That left her in a tie for 32^nd at 226.

   The other two final-round counters were Lund, who had a 74 for a solid 7-over 223 total that left her in a tie for 21st^th, and Kim, who also had a 74 to match Andersson’s 226 total in that tie for 32^nd. Kan and Tillstrom both had 75s. Tillstrom’s 75 gave her a solid 4-over 220 total that left her in a tie for 13^th.

   So that gave Purdue four finishers in the top 21 and six in the top 32.

   Northwestern’s Sarah Cho, a freshman from San Diego, cruised to the individual title with rounds of 72, 70 and 71 for a 3-under 213 total, five shots clear of Maryland’s Julie Vongphoumy (73-68-73), a senior from Providence, R.I., and Ohio St.’s Katja Pogacar (69-73-72), a sophomore from Slovenia.

In addition to that final-round 71 from Cho, the Wildcats got a 71 from Suchaya Tangkamolprasert, a junior from Thailand, and a 72 from  Hannah Kim, a freshman from Chula Vista, Calif. in forging that 284 that enabled them to catch Ohio St.

   It was a disappointing weekend for Denise St. Pierre’s Penn State team as the Nittany Lions finished 12^th with rounds of 303, 305 and 304 for a 912 total. The Nittany Lions were led by Grace Chung, a junior from Ontario who had rounds of 73, 75 and 74 to finish in a tie for 18^th at 222. Senior Ellen Ceresko, the reigning two-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion and a rival of Kan’s in high school and in Pennsylvania amateur circles, wrapped up her career at Penn State in a tie for 72^nd at 239.

   St. Pierre is getting a major infusion of talent from District One in the next two years with Jackie Rogowicz, a two-time District One champion and two-time PIAA runnerup from Pennsbury, and Cara Basso, a PIAA Class AA champion as a sophomore at Villa Maria, arriving next fall and Council Rock North standout Madelein Herr the following year.

   The destination for the NCAA regionals for Kan and her Boilermakers will be revealed Monday. I’ve never been much of a fan of rankings because I think they are often made by people won don’t really know the teams, so it’s not that surprising that Purdue never got inside the top 30 in the rankings, despite some really nice results this spring.

   The Boilermakers are going to be a dangerous team in the regionals, no matter where they go. They have a nice mix of talent and experience. That middle round at the Big Ten Tournament was hardly a fluke and was accomplished with probably their two most talented players, Martin and Kim, posting 75s.

   Speaking of the Big 10 and former PIAA champions, former Ohio St. standout Rachel Rohanna, who won the PIAA title as a junior at Waynesburg in 2007, was a winner Sunday on the Symetra Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit.

   Kan was a  freshman at Chichester in 2007 and she was in the hunt following the opening round of the PIAA Tournament at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort, but Rohanna blew the field away, Kan settling for a tie for fifth. Kan would finish no worse than second at Heritage Hills the next three years.

   Rohanna carded a 2-over 74 in windy conditions at Sara Bay in Sarasota, Fla. Sunday to win the Guardian Retirement Championship event by two shots with a 5-under 211 total. Rohanna earned $16,500 to jump from 16^th to fourth on the Symetra money list. The top 10 on the final Symetra Tour money list automatically graduate to the LPGA Tour.

   Among the five players who finished tie for second behind Rohanna was Canadian Maude-Aimee Leblanc, a member of Purdue’s 2010 NCAA championship team.

Lees completes weekend sweep at the shore

   Agnes Irwin freshman Kaitlyn Lees completed a weekend sweep of a Junior Golf Scoreboard series at the Jersey Shore with another solid round of golf at the Sea Oaks Golf Club in Little Egg Harbor that gave her a first-place finish in the 16-to-18 division.

   In my last blog post, I reported on Lees’ winning effort with a 77 in the Philadelphia PGA Junior Tour stop at Hidden Creek Golf Club Saturday. The weather wasn’t  nearly as benign Sunday at Sea Oaks, but it didn’t seem to bother Lees, the Inter-Ac League champion as a seventh-grader two springs ago. Lees posted a 6-over 78 over the 5,505-yard, par-71 Sea Oaks layout to again win her division and wrap up the top spot for the weekend.

   Lees had birdies at 10 and 14 in her round at Sea Oaks.

   Runnerup honors went to Radnor sophomore Gabby Kim, who carded an 85 at Sea Oaks. Kim’s younger sister June  had a 97 to finish sixth. As a Class of 2020 competitor, June Kim was the youngest player in the field.

   The Kim sisters were the only other players besides Lees to compete in both ends of the weekend series with Gabby and June finishing second and third, respectively, behind Lees.

   Lees, by the way, teed it up Monday for Agnes Irwin against perennial Inter-Ac League powerhouse Notre Dame at Overbrook Golf Club and was the medalist for the day with a 1-over 36. That match is covered in the high school roundup in Tuesday’s print edition of the Daily Times and on GameTime.

   Most of the rest of the Delco contingent that teed it up Saturday at Hidden Creek did not return to Sea Oaks. One exception was Andrew Curran of Media, who finished 13^th in the boys 13-to-15 division with a 100. He had a 92 at Hidden  Creek and struggled a little at Sea Oaks when that notorious ocean breeze kicked up.

   Caleb Ryan of Norristown won the 13-to-15 division at Sea Oaks with a sparkling 1-over 73. That also gave Ryan series honors for the weekend with a 157 total, five shots clear of J.T. Spina of Schwenksville.

   Tommy Lewis of Doylestown won the 16-to-18 division at Sea Oaks with a 76. William Mitchell of Moorestown,  N.J., runnnerup to Lewis at Sea Oaks with an 80, was the series winner by two shots over Lewis.

   Theresa Luu of Mullica Hill, N.J. won the girls 13-to-15 division at Sea Oaks with a 98. Casey Oppenheimer of Conshohocken was the only 13-to-15 girl to play both days at the shore and won the series title.

   Among the nine-holers, John Wang of Wilmington, Del. posted a 41 at Sea Oaks to finish first there. Combined with his 43 at Hidden Creek, it gave Wang the series win with an 84, one shot better than Joshua Ryan of Norristown.