Cape golf team wins two more
May 7, 2010
The Cape Henlopen High School golf team improved on its season record during the last week, with victories in both conference and non-conference play.
The Vikings hosted Delmar High School at Kings Creek Country Club April 29, and won 185-207.
Devin Medd took medallist honors with a three-over par 39 on Kings Creek’s front nine. “That was my best score for a match, ever,” Medd said. His two birdies, on the fourth and seventh holes, helped offset a few bogeys and a double bogey on the sixth.
Nick Purnell shot a 46 on his personal home course, with pars on the first and eighth holes. Co-Captain Connor Jones had a 47, which he attributed to “missing putts and hitting trees.”
Co-captain Casey Anderson was upset with his 53, but that score ended up counting among the squad’s top four. That’s because Matthew Kersey, the other Viking playing that day, found himself out of golf balls on the seventh hole, when his tee shot flew out of bounds. He then found two balls in the woods off the course, which he used to finish the last two holes. However, the damage was done with Kersey’s disqualification for not completing the seventh hole.
The Vikings then traveled to Maple Dale Country Club in Dover May 3, where they played against St. Thomas More Prep of Magnolia. This time the Cape team won fairly easily, 170-195, and without any drama involving the rules of golf.
Shane Ghigliotty shot a 41 for the round, which included a birdie on the 340-yard par-4 eleventh hole. He also made pars on the par-3 sixteenth hole and the par-5 eighteenth hole, to go with his six bogeys on the remaining holes. “This was my first time playing Maple Dale,” Ghigliotty said. “The fairways were nice. I was hitting my driver straight today, and not hooking it.”
Matthew Kersey bounced back from his travails against Delmar with a 41, which earned him co-medallist honors with Ghigliotty. “Everything was clicking today. I parred 16 to start. I felt really good about my round today. I didn’t use my woods off the tee. I just used my 3-iron.”
Jones shot a 44, with six bogeys, 2 pars, and one double bogey. “I just played bogey golf today,” he said. “I made every putt I needed to make for a bogey.”
Purnell tied Jones with his own 44, which brought a smile to Purnell’s face. “I started with a double. I had four pars, 3 doubles, and 2 bogeys. The greens were rolling nice. I sank a couple of ten footers,” he said.
The Vikings must also make a slight adjustment in their match records for the season, due to a rules infraction. After the April 26 match against Indian River High School, Head Coach Claudio Smarrelli discovered that one player had been absent from school that day. Under Cape’s attendance policy, that meant he should not have played in that afternoon’s match.
The Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association rules distinguish among the various sports in dealing with this infraction. A golf match combines individual scores for the team total. The differences are carried forward in the DIAA eligibility violation rules:
The … inadvertent use of an ineligible athlete in the sport[] of …golf… shall require the offending school to forfeit the matches won and points earned by the ineligible athlete… The points contributed by an ineligible athlete to his/her team score shall be deleted and the contest score as well as the affected placements will be adjusted according to the rules of the sport.
If this had been a football or field hockey game, however, Cape would have forfeited the contest by using an ineligible player.
In this case, the total posted by Cape’s fifth golfer for the day replaced the ineligible player’s total, adding seven strokes to the team total. Fortunately for Cape, those added strokes weren’t enough to wipe out their win against Indian River.
Even so, Smarrelli wasn’t too pleased about the infraction.
He was certainly right to feel that way.