Athlete of the Week Runners Up: Deng and Smith Post Strong Showings

While Men's Soccer's Jake Freeman took the top in this week's Athlete of the Week rankings, senior Robert Deng of Men's Golf and football junior Semar Smith both led their teams to strong performances this past week.

Robert Deng Men’s Golf

The Harvard men’s golf team defended its title in the Macdonald Cup at Yale this weekend, led by senior Robert Deng, who fired a career-low first round 65 (-5). He followed that round with scores of 71 (+1) and 69 (-1) en route to a 5-under-par finish through 54 holes. The Crimson put down 14 challenging teams, besting Ivy rival Yale in third-place by seven strokes, and fourth-place Princeton by eight.

The Course at Yale certainly suits Deng’s eye, as he followed up his second-place performances in 2014 and 2015 with a fourth-place result this year, finishing five strokes behind Boston College’s Matt Naumec.

After missing the team’s first event at Bethpage in New York, Deng has shown strong leadership throughout the fall season, also posting a T-3 finish at the Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge in late September, where participated as an individual.

Deng led Harvard to an overall even-par finish, four strokes ahead of runner-up Sterling University, who shipped in all the way from Scotland. The Crimson has a two-week layoff before heading to South Carolina for the Camden Collegiate Invitational at Camden Country Club.

Semar Smith Football

Junior Semar Smith led No. 16 Harvard (4-0, 2-0 Ivy League) to a 29-13 win over Cornell (3-1, 1-1) with 71 yards and a trio of touchdowns at Harvard Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Smith averaged 3.7 yards per carry on 19 attempts. Smith ran for his first touchdown on the last play of the first quarter, rushing four yards to the right side for the score.

With 9:19 left in the third quarter Smith extended Harvard’s lead to 20-7 with an untouched six-yard cutback run up the middle. He added a third touchdown with 7:28 to go in the fourth, an almost identical run to his score earlier in the half.

Smith’s patient style served him well in this game, allowing the play to develop before deciding to cutback. He is averaging 84.8 yards per game and 4.7 yards per carry on the season, and the Coral Springs, Florida has now tallied six touchdowns on the season. The Cornell game was Smith’s second multi-touchdown game—he scored two at Brown. The trusty Junior has 72 touches on the season and no fumbles.

Smith helped extend Harvard’s eleven-game winning streak over Cornell, the longest streak between the two schools since 1890.