The Fordham golf team participated in the Abarta Coca-Cola Invitational in Hellertown, Pennsylvania this weekend hosted by Lafayette College. The Rams finished in a tie for 16th place in the team competition, 31 shots behind the winners, the Iona Gaels. 

Fordham struggled from the bottom of their lineup once again. Despite being led by junior P.J. O’Rourke’s under par round, Fordham shot the worst round of the day on Monday with a 305 (+17). O’Rourke’s tie for fifth place came thanks to a two-under final round on Monday. He finished one-under on the tournament, five shots behind Justin Burkhamer of Iona. 

The next sight of the Rams on the scoreboard is senior Ryan Davis, who finished T-72 with a +10 cumulative score. He shot 75 on Monday, a very respectable round for the senior. Freshman Jake Mrva finished T-80 with a score of +11. His first-round 77 ties for his career low at Fordham and his two-round score of 155 is his best to this point. In a tie for 94th place were juniors Nicholas Manning and John Kryscio, who both shot +16 over the two days. They shot matching 78s on Sunday and 82s on Monday. It was a tough week again for the captain, Manning, and last year’s stud Kryscio. 

On the team leaderboard, Fordham tied with Niagara University and Lafayette’s B team in 16th place, only ahead of College of the Holy Cross and Canisius College. The 305 on Monday dropped them out of 13th place into the bottom five. They lost to more Atlantic 10 competition in St. Bonaventure University by 12 shots and Rhode Island University by 22 shots. Losing to the Bonnies is particularly rough as they were one of the teams that leapfrogged the Rams on Monday. The Rams have yet to beat any A-10 competition this spring, losing to St. Joseph’s University last week at Columbia University. 

As for the rest of the tournament, Burkhamer went wire-to-wire with matching scores of 69 to take the crown. The low round of the week was shot on Monday by Mount St. Mary University’s Michael Robinson, who shot a 66 on Monday to finish under par for the event. The six-under score launched him 47 spots up the leaderboard into a tie for fifth with O’Rourke. The A-10 was well-represented in the top 15. Brandon Gillis from Rhode Island finished even par, in a tie for ninth with Danny Gianniny from St. Bonaventure. Rhode Island also had Bryson Richards finish T-11 with a score of +2.

Next week, the Rams head to the Yale Spring Invitational in New Haven, Connecticut. It marks their final scheduled event of the spring before the A-10 Championship at the end of April. Fordham needs to put together a good day on Saturday as Yale is a one-day event. The confidence they have right now needs to improve in order to better their performance last year in Orlando, Florida.