DALLAS (Pa.) – The Delaware Valley University men's golf team finished fourth of nine teams at the 2023 Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Freedom Championship tournament that began on Friday and concluded on Saturday afternoon. The Aggies five student-athletes finished the two-day tournament with a team score of 675 (+99) after carding a 339 in round one and a 336 for round two.
Junior Ethan Saxe earned second team all-conference with a team-best showing of 16-over par (160) to earn a tied-10th finish. Saxe earned Rookie of the Year honors at last year's MAC Freedom Championship tournament after finishing tied-13th with a 21-over par showing.
In this year's preseason coaches' poll, DelVal was picked to finish fifth, the same position they finished last year's tournament. The Aggies bested the by one spot this year, and improved upon last year's finish (+103) by four strokes.
This year, the nine MAC Freedom men's golf programs competed at Huntsville Golf Club that played to a par-72 at 6,500 yards. Conditions were clear on day one until thunderstorms suspended play towards the end of the round and the players were forced to finish the first round on Saturday morning, before beginning round two.
Saxe was five-over par after the first nine holes, but managed to birdie 10 to get to 4-over. He played the final eight holes of the first round at 7-over to finish with an 83. The junior put together one of his best nine-hole stretches of the season to start the second round as he found two birdies and made the turn at 1-over. After back-to-back bogeys to start the final nine holes, he strung together four straight birdies before two more bogeys to end the round. He finished with a 5-over, 77, for round two to earn the tied-10th finish. Saxe found 15 pars and three birdies over the 36 holes.
Senior Jake Kinzer was consistent over the two days, shooting a 83 followed by an 84. Kinzer played the front nine at 5-over par in both rounds. He was 9-over par heading into the 36th and final hole, but a triple bogey to end the tournament gave Kinzer a 23-over par, tied 16th finish for the championship. Kinzer shot a team-best 18 birdies over the two-day tournament.
Robert Meredith and Greg Gipe finished in consecutive order with a tied-22 and a 24th, respectively. Both golfers were consistent, and shot one better on round one than they did in round two. Meredith carded a 14-over, 86, on day one and an 87 on day two, while Gipe shot an 87 followed by an 88. He had 15 pars for the tournament.
Meredith went 7-over on the first and second nine holes of the tournament, but came back on day two with a four-over par on the front nine. The final nine holes tripped up Meredith as he had three holes of double-bogey or worse, but salvaged the round with a par on the 18th.
Gipe shot an identical 7-over par on the front nine on both days. He finished the 36 holes with 11 pars and one birdie.
Ryan Foley rounded out the team with a 99 on day one and a 96 on day two as he fired 10 pars and a birdie.
Stevens Institute of Technology repeated as team champions with a total score of 607 (+31), and Gus Vickers was the individual champion with a two-day score of 5-over par. Vickers shot an even-par round of 72 in the second round. Arcadia finished second with a team score of 642 (+66) and King's College was just five strokes better than DelVal with a 670 (+94) to earn third.
