Germantown Academy could have finished second in the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy Invitational Monday at The 1912 Club and still claimed its first Inter-Ac League championship since 1995.
So, you could argue that it didn’t really matter what Germantown Academy senior Jack Luviano, the last Patriot still on the golf course, did in the last two holes.
But the fact that Luviano birdied the last two holes to give Germantown Academy a dramatic 188-189 one-shot edge on Malvern Prep in the last of the six Inter-Ac invitationals that comprise the regular season tells you all you need to know about the kind of grit that gave the Patriots their first league title since before any of their players were born.
Luviano’s two birdies gave him a 1-over-par 36, the best score of the day for Germantown Academy. Sophomore Will Irons added a 2-over 37, senior Luke Marvin and freshman Kiran Bagga, the youngest of the three Bagga siblings playing for the Patriots, each landed on 38.
Germantown Academy could take its pick from either of the 39s posted by sophomore Ajeet Bagga and senior Seth Roth for the critical fifth counter.
Ajeet Bagga was the runnerup to Malvern Prep senior Keller Mulhern in the season-long individual points race. Mulhern capped off a spectacular season by claiming medalist honors at The 1912 Club with a sparkling 3-under 33. It gave Mulhern 525 points while Ajeet Bagga settled for second place with 486 points.
Ajeet Bagga might very well have set the tone for Germantown Academy when he shared individual medalist honors with Mulhern in the first invitational of the season hosted by the Patriots at Bluestone Country Club. He would go on to take medalist honors in two other GA victories in The Haverford School Invitational at Gulph Mills Golf Club and in Monday’s Malvern Prep Invitational at Whitford Country Club.
But the seniors, Luviano, Marvin and Roth, were there when it came time to close it out Monday at The 1912 Club.
Monday’s sweep of the final invitational of the season, the Patriots’ fourth outright victory in six invitationals, left Germantown Academy with a 28-2 mark. Malvern Prep won the Penn Charter Invitational at Huntingdon Valley Country Club and the Episcopal Academy Invitational at Merion Golf Club’s West Course and was the runnerup to GA three other times as the Friars finished in second place with a 25-5 record.
Episcopal Academy, which finished in third place Monday at The 1912 Club with a 200 total, ended up third in the final team standings with a 17-13 record and Haverford School, which had won the last three Inter-Ac crowns, was fourth with a 14-16 record. Penn Charter took fifth place with a 6-24 record with Springside Chestnut Hill finishing sixth with an 0-30 mark.
Only Haverford School, Episcopal and Malvern Prep had won Inter-Ac titles since the invitational format was adopted when the league switched the schedule from the spring to the fall in 2011.
The performance by Malvern Prep’s Mulhern capped a fairly sensational regular season for him. There were a couple of half-hearted attempts at some matches in the coronavirus pandemic year of 2020, but it wasn’t a real season. I’ve talked to enough kids who were sophomores or juniors in 2020 and had their season diminished in various ways to know what a helpless feeling they experienced.
A determined Mulhern was going to make his senior season count and he was good right from the start when he shared medalist honors with Ajeet Bagga at Bluestone. He was the individual medalist with a 2-over 37 at Huntingdon Valley and again with a sizzling 3-under 32 at Merion West last week, leading the Friars to sweeps that enabled them to keep a little heat on Germantown Academy.
His 33 Monday at The 1912 Club gave Mulhern a 35.8 scoring average for the six Inter-Ac Invitationals, the lowest scoring average any Inter-Ac player has achieved since the invitational format was adopted a decade ago.
Junior Dylan O’Connor backed up Mulhern with a 3-over 38 at The 1912 Club. Senior Henry Fish and freshman Michael Henry each added a 4-over 39. Jack Davis, the other senior co-captain along with Mulhern, had the final counter for the Friars with a 40.
Eighth-grader Davis Conaway’s 43 didn’t count, but the kid definitely made himself heard this fall, finishing in seventh place in the individual standings. He will be a good player for Malvern Prep for a long time.
Episcopal Academy was led by one of its talented sophomores in Jack Crowley, whose 1-over 36 was a career best. Sophomore Jack Yearley backed up Crowley with a 39 and Hunter Stetson, another sophomore, added a 41. Senior Henry Macrides and Grayson Jakuc rounded out the scoring for the Churchmen, each posting a 42.
Mulhern will certainly be one of the favorites when, for the first time in two years, the Bert Linton Inter-Ac League individual championship tees off Wednesday at Bluestone. Ajeet Bagga might have a little bit of an advantage on the Patriots’ home course.
The last time the Bert Linton was contested, two Octobers ago at Gulph Mills, an unheralded sophomore from GA, Luke Marvin, captured the title. In retrospect, maybe it was a hint of good things to come for the Germantown Academy program.
The top 18 finishers on the regular-season points list are automatic qualifiers for the Bert Linton and coaches for each team are allowed a wild-card selection. The plan is for me to get over there and go live with the blog.
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