Following a victory at the first Northeast regional at Birdsfoot two weeks before, the University of Delaware college golf club team carried the momentum into Bedford Springs to take Regional #2 and earn an automatic bid to the college golf club Nationals. The second Regional was held at the Bedford Springs Old Course, on the property of the beautiful Omni Bedford Springs Resort in Southern Pennsylvania. Playing as a par 72 at 6,785 yards, with a slope of 136 and a rating of 71.9, the course, rated annually as one of the best public courses in Pennsylvania, brought many challenges for the eight college golf club team field. Mother nature blessed the field with
sunny weather on both days with the temperature floating around the 55-degree mark.
Delaware came out of the gate with an impressive 390-stroke round following day one, holding a seven shot advantage over the University of Pittsburgh. Three Delaware players — Tim An, Alex Francescone and Bryan Basciani — all recorded scores in the seventies on day one. The low round of the day belonged to Pitt junior Peter Hoffman who shot 75 (+3) and held a one shot lead over West Virginia standout Mason Short. Penn State followed Pitt in third place after day one, shooting 409 led by Greg Merrick’s 78.
Round two, beginning on Sunday, April 7th, at 11 a.m., brought higher scores across the board for the entire field. Only three players in the entire field — John Peterson of Penn State (77), Matt Lombardi of Delaware (76) and Mark Bondi of Pittsburgh (76) — managed to shoot in the seventies on day two. Following a 77 on day one, Bondi took home medalist honors as he cleared the rest of the field by three strokes. He led the way for the second consecutive second place team finish for Pitt, as they earned another three points toward Nationals Qualifying. Peterson led Penn State to a third place finish and they earned their first points of the college golf club semester.
The friendly service at Bedford Springs was extremely helpful and generous. Though the greens had just been punched and were a bit sandy, putts still rolled well and the fairways and tee boxes were pristine. Delaware college golf heads to the Kampen Course at Purdue to represent the Northeast at Nationals as Pitt will have to wait and see how the wild card standings shake out to find out if their ticket will be punched. Good luck to Delaware at Nationals and see you all in the Fall.
