Men's Golf: Tigers net 5-0 sweep over Brown

Sophomore Evan Harmeling polished off his opponent eight and seven in the men’s golf team’s tournament this weekend.

In golf speak, this means he led his opponent by eight holes when there were only seven left to play. In sports speak, this is basically a shutout.

And shut out is exactly what the men’s golf team did to Brown this weekend during the second round of bracket play. In a tournament scored on a hole-to-hole basis, the team blanked Brown 5-0. Harmeling was joined by fellow sophomores Chase Lovett-Woodsum and Patrick Wasserman, as well as seniors Juan Pablo Candela and Greg Stamas, in the win.

This strong finish brought the men’s golf team to a tie for fifth in its final tournament of the fall season. Winning seven of 10 matches, the team was led by strong play from Harmeling and Lovett-Woodsum, who both won their first- and second-round matches.

In the tournament, held at Bay Club in Mattapoisett, Mass., all eight Ivy teams were to compete in brackets against each other, playing two games Saturday and a final round Sunday.

Each match had five players from each school compeing against each other, with match-play scoring rather than overall stroke count determining the winner.

The winner of a match was the person who won more of the 18 holes than his opponent did, and the first team to three winners claimed the match.

In the first round, Yale defeated Princeton, Columbia beat Brown, Penn bested Cornell, and Harvard took down Dartmouth.

Stamas noted that, over the weekend, Princeton learned how evenly matched the teams in the Ancient Eight are.

“Saturday really showed how balanced the Ivy League is this year,” Stamas said. “Every first-round match was decided 3-2, and last year’s Ivy League winner, Columbia, barely defeated Brown on the very last hole of the last individual match.”

Stamas added that the loss to the Bulldogs was a hard one for the Tigers to take.

“It was disappointing losing to Yale in the morning, especially because the match could have gone either way,” Stamas said.

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But the Tigers were not discouraged by this close loss. The team came out much stronger in the afternoon, earning a 5-0 blowout over Brown.

Besides the win against Brown, the second-round brackets saw Yale defeat Columbia 3-2, Penn beat Harvard 3-2 and Dartmouth trounce Cornell 4-1.

Sunday matches were meant to determine the final rankings.

Yale and Penn were to play for first, Columbia and Harvard for third, Dartmouth and Princeton for fifth and Cornell and Brown for seventh.

Yet the rain that lasted all through Saturday night flooded most of the greens, making play impossible and resulting in the cancellation of the rest of the tournament.

The final scores remained as they stood at the end of play on Saturday.

Overall, the Tigers left the weekend optimistic about their play, and they look forward to beginning their spring season.

“A bunch of us are playing our best golf right now,” Harmeling said. “I can’t wait till April.”