Sunday Improvement Leads to Golf’s Ninth Place Finish
Thanks to improvements from all five of its players on the final day, Fordham swung to a much-improved ninth place finish at the Lehigh Invitational as they get set to embark on the final match of their fall season.
Aivazoglou’s (above) growth has been a primary bright spot for the Rams this fall. (Courtesy of Fordham Athletics)
The Fordham golf team was back in action at the Lehigh Invitational this weekend after four weeks off. They took ninth place out of the 14 teams at Saucon Valley Country Club, a stark improvement over their dead last finish in the same event two seasons ago.
All five members of the Rams placed in the middle of the pack on the individual leaderboard. Junior Andreas Aivazoglou paced Fordham with a 10-over T29 finish. The Pennsylvania native followed his career-low round from the MacDonald Cup with a 75 (+3) in the second round. Aivazoglou certainly seems to have turned a corner in his collegiate career as of late, and the Rams hope that continues into the spring season.
Junior Nicholas Manning followed Aivazoglou at +11 in a tie for 34th. Jake Mrva made his season debut, posting a 77 in the second round to jump up the board to tie at 36th. However, junior John Kryscio again struggled, bringing up the Rams’ caboose with a disappointing +15 over the two-round event. All five players shot a lower score on Saturday in round two than they did in the first 18 holes, which pulled them up from 11th to their final landing zone in ninth.
Fordham beat local competitors Rider University and Hofstra University, along with the College of the Holy Cross, Bucknell University and Felician College. Once again, the Rams had no Atlantic 10 competition this week. Harvard University won the event, posting a 290 (+2) on the second day to jump from third to the top spot. Siena College (+12) and the College of William & Mary (+16) rounded out the podium spots, while host team Lehigh University came in fifth.
Individually, Nolan Crowley (Siena College) and Brian Ma (Harvard University) tied for the top spot at 142 (-2). Crowley fired a two-under 70 on the final day to leap five spots. Ma took the weekend’s low round with a day one score of 69. Lehigh’s Sam Barton, Siena’s Matt Ferrari and three other players tied at +2 round out the top five.
Next up for the Rams is an early week affair hosted by Wagner College at Montclair Golf Club in West Orange, New Jersey. They will look to continue a trend of improving on their standings in previous iterations of the event. The Rams placed 15th of 16 teams in the last contention of the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Championship in 2019. They hope to do even better this year.
There are highs to take away from this event, specifically the improvement from all five players. They are headed into a tournament with similar competition and will look to grow once again as they enter the winter offseason.
