After placing in the top four in each of the last three Ivy League Championship tournaments, the Red concluded their season with a seventh-place finish, 21 strokes behind first-place Princeton.
The Red was carried by senior Tianyi Cen, who ended the weekend and his collegiate golf career with a six-over-par cumulative score. He shot two-over-par in his final round, which clinched him the sixth best score individually in the tournament and garnered him a spot on the All-Ivy second team for a second consecutive year. Last season, Cen finished the tournament in the eighth spot.
Junior Jack Casler, who had been the Red’s best golfer coming into the tournament, carded the second-best score for Cornell, shooting 10-over-par for 20th-best out of 40 in the tournament. While the tournament did not represent his best performance of the season, Casler dominated the par fives, scoring four under par on those holes in the tournament.
Sophomore Charlie Dubiel carded an 11-over-par but ended his season with an impressive one under par final round. His score put him in 21st place overall for the tournament, one spot behind teammate Casler.
Freshman Noah Schwartz and junior Mike May rounded out the scorecard for Cornell. Schwartz shot 21-over-par, placing him tied for 32nd, while May ended his season with a 22-over-par performance, leaving him tied for 34th.
Princeton won the tournament, their 21st in school history and their first in the last five seasons. The Tigers edged out Columbia by one stroke and defending champion Yale by two.
The Bulldogs came into the weekend as the undisputed favorites, but Princeton was able to pull out the championship in their home state.
“This week was a little disappointing just knowing that you don’t really have to shoot any crazy low scores to win the Ivy League Championships because it is always on a very difficult golf course where course management is key,” Dubiel said. “I think as a team we tied Princeton for birdies on the week but finished seventh and over 20 shots behind their winning total. That tells me that we hit enough good shots to win, but did not manage the bad shots nearly as well as they did.”
Yale senior James Nicholas placed first individually with a score of two-over-par. Princeton’s best scorer on the weekend was junior Evan Quinn, who shot four-over-par and concluded the weekend in second place.
Next season, the Red will return much of the same core as this season with the exception of Cen. The team expects to compete for an Ivy League title — a feat which has never been accomplished in school history.
“Overall, we have a lot of work to do in order to be the best team in the Ivy League, but the potential is there,” Dubiel said. “We are obviously very sad to lose Tianyi [Cen] to graduation this year, but we have a few solid players coming in who should be able to make an impact right away.
The highlight of the spring season for the Red was their first-place finish in the one-day BCD Invitational in Florida. However, the squad faltered down the stretch, finishing in the last place in the Rutherford Intercollegiate the week before the Ivy Championships.