Cricket Club establishing itself as the team to beat in GAP team competitions

   The top players at Philadelphia Cricket Club are trying to erase any doubt as to which Golf Association of Philadelphia club has the deepest pool of talent.

   They took another step toward that end last Thursday by capturing the GAP Team Championship over three other clubs in a day of matches at Manufacturers Golf & Country Club.

   The Cricket Club emerged with 22 points after a morning of alternate-shot matches and an afternoon of singles matches among the four eight-man teams. Perennial Team Championship power Overbrook Golf Club was the runnerup with 19.5 points, Little Mill Country Club was third with 17 points and Running Deer Golf Club, competing in the Team Championship final for the first time, was fourth with 13.5 points.

   The victory enabled the Cricket Club to complete a sweep of GAP’s top two team competitions, the spring BMW Team Matches and the Team Championship. Little Mill was the last team to accomplish the difficult double in 2016.

   “Our goal is to continue winning the Team Matches and Team Championship titles to prove that the previous ones weren’t a fluke,” Frank Petrash IV, the team captain by virtue of winning the club championship at the Cricket Club last year, no small feat itself, told  the GAP website. “Having won three out of the last four titles these past two years, I think that speaks a testament in itself. It feels great to bring another one back home.”

   The Cricket Club got a big boost from Conrad Von Borsig, winner of the 2009 BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship at Stonewall.

   Von Borsig teamed with Ryan Gelrod as they swept their morning alternate-shot matches, a feat matched by Little Mill’s Zach Arsenault and Jack Irons.

   Little Mill emerged from the morning session with a narrow half-point advantage over the Cricket Club with 8 points. Running Deer was third with 5 points and Overbrook was fourth with 3.5 points.

Von Borsig again picked up a three-point sweep in his afternoon singles matches as did teammate Robby Walizer, enabling the Cricket Club to surge to the victory.

   Overbrook won the afternoon singles with 16 points that vaulted it into second place, but the Cricket Club’s solid afternoon haul of 14.5 points gave it the overall title.

   It was the third Team Championship for the Cricket Club with all of them coming in the last five years. The Cricket Club captured its first Team Championship in 2013 and added its second in 2015.

   Overbrook has won the Team Championship 14 times and yeah, they still have some players along Sproul Road. Little Mill’s win two years ago was its first and Running Deer reached the final for the first time.