Nobody questions the depth of talent that Philadelphia
Cricket Club brings to the table when the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s
BMW Team Matches are being contested.
But it’s golf and it’s match play. Things can happen. So the
Cricket Club had a whole year to stew about falling four points short of Little
Mill Country Club in last year’s four-team Playoff among the section winners in
the top tier of the Team Matches, Division AA.
The Cricket Club was back at it this year, again earning a
spot in the four-team Playoff. Little Mill was back as well along with a strong
Huntingdon Valley Country Club team and a Glenmaura National Golf Club team
that was a bit of a surprise.
The matches were originally scheduled to be contested May
13, but Glenmaura National was the only course that was playable on that cold
and rainy Saturday.
Still, the Cricket Club got what it needed that day when Joe
April came away with 8.5 points against a group that included Huntingdon
Valley’s top gun, Jeff Osberg, the two-time reigning William Hyndman III GAP
Player of the Year winner.
That helped offset a nine-point sweep for Huntingdon
Valley’s Kyle Sterbinksy, a former Peddie School standout and a sophomore at
Wake Forest who, inexplicably, was not on the postseason roster for the Demon
Deacons.
The Playoff finally concluded Sunday and the Cricket Club,
getting a spectacular showing from the trio it sent to Huntingdon Valley, got
back on top in the Team Matches, capturing the title for third time in the last
five years. The Cricket Club finished with 78.5 points with Huntingdon Valley
the runnerup at 61.5 points. Little Mill was third with 49 and Glenmaura
National finished fourth at 27.
Ryan Gelrod led the way for the Cricket Club trio that
traveled to Huntingdon Valley, getting nine points as the Cricket Club came
away with a whopping 20 points from the difficult William Flynn gem.
“Everybody was really committed and amped up to play,”
Gelrod told the GAP website. “Everybody remembered the frustration from last
year. We wanted to make sure we got it done this year. (Team captain) Kevin
Kelly kind of reminded us each week, ‘Remember what happened last year. Let’s
not let that happen again.’ Last year is last year now.”
Gelrod was joined on the trip to Huntingdon Valley by Cole
Berman, the 2015 BMW Philadelphia Amateur champion coming off a solid junior
season at Georgetown, and John Brennan, a match-play qualifier at last summer’s
U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall.
Clearly, Kelly made sure he sent some of his best to a course
as challenging as Huntingdon Valley is.
Michael Carr maxed out by taking nine points as the Cricket
Club piled up 21 more points at Little Mill and Brendan Borst earned 8.5 points
to help the trio that stayed at home on the Wissahickon Course, an A.W.
Tillinghast classic, also earn 21 points for the Cricket Club.
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