SPORTS BRIEF: Men's Golf Finishes 11th in Illinois

Throughout most of the year, the Crimson has turned in largely middling performances. And in its last match of the fall season, the trend continued.

Facing tough competition in its final tournament of the year, the Harvard men’s golf team found itself toward the bottom of the pack, taking 11th out of 17 teams this weekend in Skokie, Ill., in the Windon Memorial Classic Invitational.

Captain Tony Grillo, senior Mark Pollak, sophomores Seiji Liu and Theo Lederhausen, and freshman Akash Mirchandani all represented the Crimson at two-day event, which took place on Sunday and Monday at the Evanston Golf Club, a 6,793 yard course near host Northwestern University.

Matt Thompson of the University of Michigan won the tournament with a score of 205, followed by Eric Chun from Northwestern at 207 and Ethan Tracy of Arkansas with 209, who paced the tournament’s winning team.

Two tournament rounds were scheduled for Sunday, with a third to be played on Monday morning, but part of the second round was postponed until Monday on account of darkness.

At the end of the first day, the Crimson stood in 15th, with Pollak leading the way with an opening-round 72, good for a 34th overall.

Lederhausen and Grillo both finished just a shot back of the senior with a pair of 73s.

Liu was tied for 78th with a score of 76. Mirchandani, the least-experienced player on the travelling squad, shot a 78 for an 84th-place finish after the round.

On the following day, the Crimson moved up from 15th to 11th as a team, with a total score of 876, 29 strokes behind Arkansas, the eventual winner.

UCLA and Indiana tied for second place, as both teams shot a combined team score of 851.

Grillo paced the team for the second straight week, finishing the tournament tied for 24th and shooting a cumulative 216 over three rounds.

Lederhausen was the Crimson’s second-best performer this weekend, as the sophomore tied for 42nd with a 219.

The rest of the team finished well behind—Mirchandani took 48th with a 221, and Pollak tied for 52nd with a 222. Liu finished in a tie for 79th with a score of 229.

It is clear that heading into a long hiatus, men’s golf has its work cut out for it during the winter offseason. The team has not finished better than fifth place or worse than 12th since the first match of the year against Yale and Princeton.