Dignazio captures a Philly Junior Tour victory with a 79 at Reading

 

   Tower Hill School senior Michael Dignazio of Wilmington, Del. put together a solid 9-over-par 79 at the classic Reading Country Club layout along Route 422 in Exeter Township to claim the top spot in the 16-to-18 division in a Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour event Saturday.

   After weeks of gloomy weekend weather, Saturday was a glorious, almost summerlike, day. The Philly Junior Tour picked a perfect day to have a pair of events as a lot of the South Jersey junior players flocked to Shore Gate Golf Club in Ocean View, N.J.

   Dignazio, who helped Tower Hill capture the state team title in Delaware in the spring, made a birdie at the fifth hole and had 12 pars on his scorecard, including a run of eight straight from the sixth through the 13^th holes.

   J.T. Krynock didn’t have far to travel from his Reading home as made birdies at the fourth and 13^th holes and had seven pars on his card to earn runnerup honors with an 82.

   Cameron Maun of West Chester had five pars on his card as he finished in third place with an 86.

   Will Shannon of Wayne took fourth place with an 89, Landon Fox of Wilmington, Del. was fifth with a 94 and a couple of Hershey guys, Mason Umbrell and Max Miller, held down the next two spots on the leaderboard, Umbrell finishing sixth with a 95 and Miller ending up seventh with a 99.

   Nicholas Scala of Yardley rounded out the field in the 16-to-18 division as he finished in eighth place with a 105.

   Cameron Werder of Lititz matched Dignazio’s 9-over 79 to claim a Philly Junior Tour victory in the 13-to-15 division. Werder’s steady round featured a birdie at the 16^th hole and eight pars.

   Lower Merion sophomore Seiji Sako made a birdie on the 14^th hole and had seven pars on his scorecard as he finished a shot behind Werder in second place with an 80. Sako capped his sophomore season with the Aces by finishing in a tie for fourth place in the PIAA Class AAA Championship at Penn State a couple of weeks ago.

   Joseph Gangemi Jr. of Downingtown made a birdie on the 14^th hole and had nine pars on his card to finish in third place with an 84.

   Trey Barkmann of West Chester and Onyu Park of Blue Bell shared fourth place, each posting an 84, Scott Cunningham of Wayne was sixth with an 86, Alex Poeth of Royersford was seventh with an 88 and Carson Deringer of Bryn Mawr was eighth with an 89.

   Brian Smyth of Springfield took ninth place with a 94 and Nolan Fitzgerald of Jenkintown rounded out the top 10 in the 13-to-15 division as he finished 10^th with a 100.

   The best score of the day, boy or girl, at Reading belonged to Mirai Kambayashi of Malvern as she finished up with a birdie at the 18^th hole for a 7-over 77 that edged Xinyuan Li of Pottstown by a shot for the win in the girls 16-to-18 division.

   Kambayashi had nine pars on her scorecard, six of them on the outgoing nine at Reading.

   Li had an outstanding round of 78 to round out a short field in the 16-to-18 division as she made back-to-back birdies at the second and third holes and had 10 pars on her card

   Bryn Brandt of Lebanon has been playing some solid golf on the Philly Junior Tour this fall and she made a birdie on the ninth hole and had two pars on her scorecard as she finished at the top of the leaderboard in the 13-to-15 division with an 89.

   Megan Choi of Penn Valley had five pars on her card as she earned runnerup honors with a 95. Emma
Gangemi of Downingtown’s Team Gangemi had two pars on her card as she took third place with a 101.

   Allison Brown of Audubon rounded out the field in the 13-to-15 division as she finished in fourth place with a 116.

   Henry Sokol of Villanova and Eric Cunningham, another member of Wayne’s Team Cunningham, shared first place among the nine-holers as each tallied a solid 2-over 36.

   Henry Sokol made a birdie at the second hole and had six pars on his scorecard as he earned his 17^th Philly Junior Tour victory of an outstanding 2023 season. Eric Cunningham made birdies at the fourth and seventh holes and had three pars on his card.

   William Thorkelson of Bryn Mawr made a birdie on the sixth hole and had four pars on his card as he finished a shot behind Henry Sokol and Eric Cunningham in third place with a 3-over 37.

   Another Bryn Mawr guy, William Quartermain, took fourth place with a solid 5-over 39, Taimoor Naseem of Sinking Spring was fifth with a 40, Jack Sokol of Villanova’s Team Sokol was sixth with a 41 and Connor Masulis of Pottstown was seventh with a 43.

   Jake Julian of Malvern and Baylor Keim of Blue Bell finished in a tie for eighth place, each recording a 46 and John (Jack) Shea of Harleysville rounded out the top 10 in the coed 12-and-under division as he finished alone in 10^th place with a 49.