Richmond Leader

Spiders place fourth at MacDonald Cup

The Richmond Spiders men's golf team combined for a 1-over 351 in the final round of Yale's MacDonald Cup Sunday to finish the event at 11-over par, fourth among the 11 teams in the field. UR was led by freshman Drew Carlin, who shot 69-69-68/206 (-4) to tie for third on the individual leaderboard.

Playing in his first collegiate event, Carlin said he didn't experience any additional nerves. "I don't check the leaderboards so I just go out and play and post the best score I can," said Carlin. "It felt great and definitely was a grind with 36 holes on the first day, but I played well and hit the ball great."

Carlin's third-place finish is the best by a Spider freshman since 2017, when Zack Justice and Andrew Sciarretta tied for second at the Atlantic 10 Championship.

"I'm really proud of Drew," said Spiders coach Adam Decker. "He was very steady all three rounds and handled everything with a lot of maturity. It was an awesome start to his college career."

Senior Lou Baker tied for 13th in the field of 72 individuals at 211 (+1). Baker sandwiched a 1-over 71 between rounds of even-par 70 while carding 40 pars, tied for second most in the field.

Sophomore Cole Ekert finished at 214 (+4) to tie for 22nd. Ekert's 13 birdies were two more than any other Spider and tied for fourth most of any individual.

Senior Ben Cooper and grad student Michael Childress tied for 34th at 219 (+9). Junior Garrett Clark was one shot back at 220 (+10) in a tie for 39th as all six Spiders finished in the top 40.

"We definitely have a deep bench on this team," said Decker. "Qualifying has been good and guys are doing a nice job of pushing one another."

Richmond will face Davidson in a match in Waterville, Ireland in two weeks before returning to tournament play at NC State's Wolfpack Intercollegiate in Raleigh, N.C. on October 15-16.

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