Jake Maddaloni was a big part of a winning formula that brought Inter-Ac League crowns to The Haverford School in 2018 and 2019.
Maddaloni’s senior season was a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic as there was no Inter-Ac champion crowned, although I’ve heard there was some limited competition.
Maddaloni proved he’s still a winner as he teamed up with North Pocono senior Billy Pabst at sweltering Rolling Green Golf Club Tuesday as they captured the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 35th Francis X. Hussey Memorial with a sparkling 7-under 64.
The 18-year-old Maddaloni, who will continue his academic and athletic pursuits at Bucknell later this summer, was going to partner with Aronimink Golf Club clubmate Jack Davis, but Davis had a conflict and had to bow out. Maddaloni reached out to the 17-year-old Pabst, their golf friendship dating back to a 2017 Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour stop at The Club at Morgan Hill.
And Pabst, who finished in a tie for sixth place in the PIAA Class AAA Championship to cap his junior season last fall, made the trip from Roaring Brook Township to form a winning team in the Hussey, an event that has become one of the top four-ball gatherings for junior golfers in the region. Better-ball-of-partner events are increasingly popular at all levels of the game and the Hussey offers juniors in this area a chance to win a trophy with one of their golfing buddies.
A bogey at the par-4 15th hole dropped Maddaloni and Pabst, playing out of Elmhurst Country Club, to 4-under for the round. But Maddaloni still sensed a chance for a trophy as he lined up a tough 45-foot birdie putt with a ton of break in it, the kind of putt for which the William Flynn greens at Rolling Green are notorious, after hitting the 123-yard, par-3 16th green with a pitching wedge.
Maddaloni got the putt to fall and the team was suddenly back on track.
“We were just having fun out there,” Pabst told the GAP website. “On No. 17, it really set in that this was a tournament round.”
Pabst responded by reaching the green at the 501-yard, par-5 17th hole in two with a 2-iron from 220 yards away. His 50-footer for eagle came up a half a revolution short, but he tapped in for birdie to get the team to 5-under heading to the 508-yard, par-5 finishing hole at the 6,321-yard, par-71 Rolling Green layout.
Maddaloni proceeded to rip a 4-iron from 210 yards out to 40 feet and, after consulting with Pabst on line and speed, drained his second bomb in three holes, this one for a closing eagle that enabled them to finish at 7-under.
They needed that putt because the Homer brothers, all three of them, were in hot pursuit.
Tatnall School senior Anthony Ciconte teamed with the youngest member of Team Homer, Jack, an incoming freshman at Tatnall, to claim runnerup honors with a 6-under 65.
Twins Matthew and Jeffrey Homer, who will be juniors at Tatnall this fall, were another shot behind their Wilmington Country Club clubmates in a tie for third place with a 5-under 66.
The Cedarbrook Country Club pair of Scott Hughes, a sophomore at La Salle, and Christian Matt, a PIAA Class AAA qualifier as a junior at Wissahickon last fall, matched the Homer twins with a 5-under 66 to get a piece of third place.
Like Maddaloni, Patrick Isztwan’s senior season at Penn Charter was pretty much a wash due to the pandemic. Isztwan, who will join the Richmond program later this summer, teamed with Huntingdon Valley Country Club clubmate Bryce Fazio as they finished alone in fifth place with a 3-under 68 that left them two shots behind the Homer twins and the Hughes-Matt pair.
Garnet Valley seniors Nick Woods and Matt Pulcinella, playing out of Concord Country Club, teamed up to finish a shot behind Isztwan and Fazio in sixth place with a 2-under 69.
Central Bucks West teammates Kevin Lydon and Charles Feraco, playing out of Commonwealth National Golf Club, shared seventh place with the Golden Oaks Golf Club pair of Colton Yenser, a PIAA Class AAA qualifier with Daniel Boone last fall, and Elijah Ruppert, who closed out an outstanding scholastic career at Brandywine Heights by finishing a tie for third place in the PIAA Class AA Championship. Both teams got it in at 1-under 70.
Huntsville Golf Club’s Matt Tressler, the PIAA Class AA runnerup with Scranton Prep last fall, teamed with Michael Semack of Glenmaura National Golf Club to share ninth place with Matthew Normand of Laurel Creek Country Club and Nathan Guertler of Merion Golf Club, each pair matching par with a 71.
Guertler was the Philly Junior Tour’s 13-to-15 division Player of the Year for the wraparound 2019-2020 season.
Another Cedarbrook duo, Darren Nolan, a senior at La Salle, and Luke Corcoran posted a 1-over 72 to finish alone in 11th place.
Another 2019-’20 Philly Junior Tour Player of the Year, Ryan McCabe in the 16-to-18 division, teamed with recent Strath Haven graduate Jackson Debusschere, McCabe’s Springhaven Club clubmate, to head a group of four teams tied for 12th place at 2-over 73.
McCabe had an outstanding scholastic career at Devon Prep, including two top-three finishes in the PIAA Class AA Championship as a sophomore and a junior. McCabe led Devon Prep to a fourth-place finish in the PIAA Class AA team chase last fall. Debusschere was a key member of the 2019 Strath Haven team that won the first Central League and District One Class AAA crowns in the history of the program.
Marple Newtown teammates Jake Micewski, who plays out of LuLu Country Club, and Josh Murphy, playing on his home course at Rolling Green, were also in the group tied for 12th place at 2-over.
Rounding out the quartet of teams tied for 12th place were the Commonwealth National duo of Noah Sim, a Hatboro Horsham standout, and Alex Feraco, another Central Bucks West player, and the Laurel Creek tandem of Chase Cristella and Tyler Smith.
The Philly Junior Tour’s 2019-’20 Player of the Year among the nine-holers in the coed 12-and-under division, Davis Conaway, teamed up with Ian Larsen to capture the Hussey’s Junior-Junior division as they carded a solid 3-over 39 over the 2,926-yard, par-36 front nine at Rolling Green.
The 13-year-old Conaway, an East Bradford resident and an eighth-grader at Malvern Prep, reached the green in two at Rolling Green’s downhill 446-yard, par-5 seventh hole with a 5-hybrid from 180 yards away and recorded a two-putt birdie to highlight the round.
The 12-year-old Larsen, a Glenmoore resident and a seventh-grader at Downingtown Middle School, plays out of Honebrook Golf Club. Larsen was coming off a victory in the Junior-Junior division at Lebanon Country Club in last week’s Pennsylvania Junior Boys’ Championship.
Paul Reilly of Hidden Creek Golf Club and Keller Tannehill of Atlantic City Country Club earned runnerup honors with a 44.
The GAP Youth on Course pair of Walker Mannon and Jackson Armstrong were another three shots behind Reilly and Tannehill in third place with a 47.
Francis X. Hussey, the tournament’s namesake, was a 13-year-old junior member at Rolling Green when he died in December 1983 during heart surgery. Hussey, who played sports in the Haverford Township schools and was an avid junior golfer at Rolling Green, suffered from a congenital heart condition.
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