Coming off of its first tournament victory in three years, the Red was able to finish third out of 16 at its lone home tournament of the fall season.
Senior Jack Casler and junior Charlie Dubiel led Cornell by tying for seventh place individually. Both Casler and Dubiel finished the weekend at two-over par. Their paths to this score, however, were very different.
Casler began his 54 holes by shooting five-over par in the first round. He was able to salvage the weekend by carding one-under par and two-under par in each of his final two rounds.
“It is pretty crazy to think that I have played my last tournament in Ithaca,” Casler said. “The last three years have flown by. Having my friends, family and the entire team on the 18th hole to watch me finish was pretty special. It was also cool to finish off with a two-under par 69 for my last round at the Cornell Invitational.”
Dubiel had a more evenly distributed weekend, scoring even par in each of his first two rounds, and concluded his weekend by shooting two-over par.
“While I finished in the top 10 again, it was also the second tournament in a row that I didn’t close out, and this one hurts a little more because of how close we came to winning as a team as well,” Dubiel said. “So, on paper, two top-10 finishes look pretty solid, but I left some big opportunities out there.”
Cornell’s top two were heavily aided by the strong play of freshmen Samuel King and Josh Lundmark. The pair shot six-over par and seven-over par, respectively.
“There’s a different energy around our team than I remember in past years,” Casler said. “We feel like we can win any week we tee it up, and I think that mentality is giving us a lot of confidence week to week.”
Sophomore Gus Lascola rounded out the starting lineup. Although his score was not counted in Cornell’s final tally, Lascola did not have his best tournament, ending at 22-over par and concluding the three rounds tied for 73 rd place.
Cornell was one of three schools to bring a “B” team to the tournament. Cornell’s other squad was able to end the weekend at 57-over par. Even though this group ended in 15th place, the “B” team was actually able to outperform Brown’s “A” squad.
The “B” team was led by freshman Benjamin Choe, who ended his first tournament in his Cornell career at eight-over par and tied for 29th.
Cornell will look to carry the momentum from its early-season success into next weekend’s tournament — the Dartmouth Invitational. Last season, the Red tied for second in a 12-team field.
“We are going to work really hard over the next few days and approach it like any other tournament,” Dubiel said. “It is on a different golf course this year, which I have heard is a bit funky, but at the end of the day, we are playing on the same golf course as all of the other teams, so it is all about shooting the lowest scores.”