Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Men's Golf Brings Senior-Laden Squad to Patriot League Championship
4/22/2010 8:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
April 22, 2010
LEWISBURG, Pa. -- Defending champions and winners of three of the last four Patriot League Championships, the Bison men's golf team heads to Hamilton, N.Y., this weekend to try to continue its recent run of dominance. Bucknell was the preseason pick to repeat as Patriot League champs, and coach Jim Cotner will bring an experienced lineup consisting of four seniors, a junior and a sophomore. Heading the list is senior Andrew Cohen, the 2009 PL individual champion and a three-time all-conference performer.
The 2010 Patriot League Championship will be hosted by Colgate at Seven Oaks Golf Course and will be a two-day, 54-hole event with 36 holes to be played Saturday and 18 on Sunday. Golfers will start to tee off at 8 a.m. on both days. Seven Oaks GC is a par-72 with a par-36 on both the front and back nine. Six golfers will compete for each team, with the low four scores in each round used for team scoring. The winner of the event receives an automatic bid to one of the six NCAA Regionals, held on the weekend of May 20-22.
This will be the fifth time Seven Oaks has played host to the Patriot League Championship, with previous turns in the rotation coming in 1991, 1994, 1998 and 2004. Bucknell has never finished higher than third in a league championship event there, although the Bison have won the Colgate Invitational twice (2004, 2006). At the most recent Colgate Invitational back in September 2009, Bucknell finished second to the host Raiders by just one shot, while senior Brian Bartow shot even par for 36 holes to claim his first career individual title.
Bartow, Cohen, Jeff Pike and Ryan Schneiter make up one of the most heralded senior classes in program history, and all four will be in the lineup this weekend. In the last two seasons all four have been named the Patriot League Golfer of the Month at least once, with Schneiter the most recent last month. Bartow, Cohen and Pike, who all hail from Westchester County just outside New York City, have all won collegiate tournaments, while Schneiter was tied for first at the Monmouth Hawk Invitational this spring before falling in a playoff. Cohen's fourth career win came two weeks ago at the Lafayette Invitational, when he shot a final-round 66 and set a school record for low round in relation to par (-6). Pike, who has battled injuries over the last two seasons, looked good earlier this week when he fired a 1-under 71 at the St. Peter's Invitational but lost out on the individual title on a match of cards.
This will be the fourth Patriot League Championship appearance for Cohen, who has never finished lower than sixth in the event and has earned all-league honors all three years so far. He tied for fourth as a freshman in 2007 and was named the league's Co-Rookie of the Year. Cohen finished sixth in 2008, then last season at West Point he had an unbelievable weekend, shooting a league-record 208 (71-68-69) en route to an eight-stroke win. Now he will be gunning to join former teammate Charlie Waddell as the only two-time league champions. Cohen will also be trying to become the sixth four-time all-league player in Patriot League history. Cohen leads the team in both spring (73.2) and overall fall/spring (72.6) scoring averages.
Bartow earned all-league honors with a T-9th finish last season, when he posted rounds of 77-76-74. This will be the third Patriot League Championship appearance for Bartow, who has a 74.1 average in 2009-10. Even though they have been strong four-year players, this will be the first Patriot League tourney appearances for both Pike and Schneiter.
The only underclassmen in the Bison lineup will be junior Ben Mattingly and sophomore Will Bachman, who have three PL appearances between them. Mattingly finished T-11th to contribute to Bucknell's 2009 team title, and he was T-17th in 2008. Bachman made the lineup as a freshman last season and opened with a stellar 2-under 69, but then struggled over the final 36 holes. Few players are currently playing better than Bachman, who has finished T-9th, T-5th, T-6th in his three spring starts. His 74.4 spring average is second on the team behind only Cohen.
For Cotner, selecting his six-man lineup was a major challenge, as this is perhaps the deepest team in program history. Of the 11 players who have donned the Orange & Blue in 2009-10, 10 have scoring averages of 77.7 or better and nine have posted at least one round of 1-over-par or better.
Results will be posted throughout the weekend at BucknellBison.com and PatriotLeague.org.
