Playing its final two tournaments of the year last week, the golf team put forth a couple of solid but unspectacular efforts to close out its spring season.
The Jumbos ended their year placing 14th out of 16 teams at the Worcester State Invitational on Tuesday, April 20. Seniors Brett Hershman and John Trott both hit team-best scores of 89, while freshman Mike McCarthy contributed a 92 that included a nine-hole low of 41 for Tufts. The last scorer for the Jumbos was senior James Stone, who hit a 42 on the front nine but stumbled a bit down the stretch for a total of 93.
Tufts totaled a score of 363 as a team, putting it 11 strokes in back of 13th-place Franklin Pierce University and just two strokes ahead of 15th-place Springfield College. Trinity College took first at the single-day tournament with a combined score of 298, 10 strokes better than the next-closest competitor. The Bantams were led by senior Dave Anderson, who shot a two-under-par 70 to take home the individual crown.
Before that, Tufts took part in the WNEC Invitational on Thursday, April 15. The highlight of the day was unquestionably Trott's hole-in-one on the par-3, 186-yard 15th hole. Trott went on to shoot an 85 on the day, tied for 43rd individually with teammates Stone and senior Cal Shapiro.
Leading Tufts was junior Luke Heffernan, who finished in a tie for eighth by posting a 78, and Hershman, who came in 35th with an 83.
The Jumbos' team total was 331, tying them with Massachusetts College for ninth place out of 12 teams. Babson led the field with a total of 306, as sophomore Joe Young won the individual medal with an even-par 72 at the event.
Tufts will not play another event until next fall. The Jumbos will have current junior Danny Moll — who is currently studying abroad — back for those tournaments, but the team will also graduate six seniors in May: Heffernan, Shapiro, Stone, Trott, Brad Dreisbach and Alex Mitropoulos. This means that just three players on the current roster will be returning this fall, so coach Bob Sheldon will likely be spending some time in the offseason trying to recruit new talent.
-- by David Heck
