Barry has Rider U. men’s golf hitting the fairway
Golf is not always measured by victory as any incremental gain in putting, accuracy and scoring average can offer optimism — may even provide pathways to the winners’ circle.
Wrote that lead for an article that never published as Rider University men’s golf coach Jason Barry offered this insight about his team.
“We just played a great tournament at Hartford (Sept. 16-17). We finished 4th and beat a lot of solid teams. In the second round we were low round shooting 278 (-10) shattering our low-round ever by 10 shots. We beat UCF and TCU that round and I believe TCU is ranked 21st in the country,” Barry wrote.
“One of my players, Jake Sollon, also finished 3rd individually, beating all TCU and UCF players, some are top ranked amateurs in the world. He shot (70-6771). Jake also finished 2nd at Colgate last week and is averaging 70.5 in our first 2 events. We are averaging 293.1 this season.”
Fast forward to the first weekend of October in Apalachin, N.Y., where the Rider University men’s golf team earned co-champion honors of the Matthews Auto Collegiate Invitational following the cancellation of Monday’s second round due to rain.
The Broncs shot 285 on Sunday to tie Canisius for the top spot. The tournament championship is Rider’s first in 13 years, having won the Cornell Invitational on Oct. 1, 2006.
“I’m so happy for our program,” said Barry. “It’s been a long time coming and I just want to thank everyone that was involved from the beginning. This is an amazing group of guys. We deserve it.”
Freshman Connor Bekefi (Toms River, NJ/Toms River North) shot a season-low, three-under 69 to place tied for third, while Nathan Bazant (Venetia, PA/Trinity [California (PA)]) lurked a stroke back of Bekefi with a two-under 70, good for sixth individually.
Austin Devereux (Brielle, NJ/ Manasquan) shot an even-par 72 (T9th), while Jake Sollon (Venetia, PA/Peters Township) rounded out the scores the Broncs counted with a two-over 74 (T-21st).
L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at LAParker@Trentonian. com.