SCH boys golf conquered by Colonials

Posted 10/3/12

SCH junior Jack Grasso contemplates a putt on the ninth green at Sunnybrook Golf Club. (Photo by Tom Utescher) On the last Monday of September the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy boys took a break …

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SCH boys golf conquered by Colonials

Posted
SCH junior Jack Grasso contemplates a putt on the ninth green at Sunnybrook Golf Club. (Photo by Tom Utescher)
On the last Monday of September the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy boys took a break from their Inter-Ac League golf schedule, playing a round on their own Sunnybrook Golf Club course against visiting Plymouth Whitemarsh High School.
by Tom Utescher However, the Blue Devils’ approach to the non-league match may have been a little too casual. Few of the SCH lads were on top of their game, and the result was a 203-225 loss to a very solid cadre of Colonials, who play their home matches at Green Valley Country Club in Lafayette Hill. SCH had been scheduled to start the season with another non-league bout (against St. Joe’s Prep) but that encounter was cancelled, so the Devils launched right into league competition, in the current tournament-style format that has all of the Inter-Ac teams playing at the same time. Springside Chestnut Hill only graduated one player, Nick McNiff, from last year’s team, and remains a relatively young squad with no seniors in the varsity rotation. The Blue Devils finished fourth at the first league gathering, which took place on their home ground at Sunnybrook, and two weeks ago they had the same result in the second Inter-Ac convocation out at Merion Golf Club’s West Course. Longtime league power Haverford School won both events. For Plymouth Whitemarsh, Monday’s victory produced an overall mark of 12-1 for the season, while the team’s record in the Suburban One League’s American Conference remained 11-1. The Colonials’ only loss this fall came at the hands of league-leading Upper Dublin (by just three strokes), and a rematch between the two contenders is in the offing. In both Pa. Interscholastic Athletic Association and Inter-Ac League golf, each team in a match designates eight athletes as its designated players, but in the Inter-Ac the top six individual rounds count in the team scoring, while in the PIAA only the top five scores are figured in. The latter formula was followed in last Monday’s match, but it made no difference. There was a large gap between the team totals to begin with, and SCH’s sixth individual score was a 48, while PW’s was a 45. The Plymouth Whitemarsh pair in the first foursome got the visitors off to a promising start, combining for an 81-stroke performance while the two Blue Devils came in at 90. Logging the best round of the afternoon, Colonials senior Evan Beaty birdied the par-five third hole, then had a bogey later in his round to come in at even par, with a 36. His 11th-grade colleague, Carter Field, carded a 45, landing in between the two SCH members of the group. The Blue Devils were led by promising eighth-grader Chris Dalglish, with a 42, while junior Jack Grasso, who’d scored a 37 at Merion West in the second Inter-Ac match, had a few balls get away from him back at Sunnybrook and finished with a 48. Plymouth Whitemarsh was ultimately able to drop Field’s 45 from the team scoring, and the highest official round for the Colonials became the 44 turned in by senior Zak Glaser, who played in the second foursome. The other Colonials player in this group wound up hitting the wrong ball along the way and did not complete an full round of golf. SCH junior Brian Giegerich, part of this same quartet out on the course, turned in the hosts’ second-best tally of the day with a 43, and classmate Peter Anthony arrived at the clubhouse with a 48. There would be two more rounds of 48 for Springside Chestnut Hill, coming from sophomore Mac McHugh and freshman Wyatt Smith in the fourth foursome. The Devils ended up keeping two of their four 48’s as part of the team score, to go along with Daglish’s 42, Giegerich’s 43, and a score of 44 furnished by Giegerich’s sophomore brother, Matt. The younger Giegerich played in the third foursome, from which PW extracted a 39 from junior Dave Pontari and a 41 from freshman John Hansel. Colonials senior Jake Mingione, a member of the last foursome, completed his team’s overall score with a round of 43.
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