RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Felician University men's golf team will compete in the 2020-21 Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) Championship tournament on Monday, April 19. The event will be hosted by Dominican (N.Y.) College at White Beeches Country Club in Haworth, N.J. The tournament is slated for one 18-hole round.
Play will commence at 10 a.m. The earliest Felician player will tee off at 10:50 a.m. The CACC, in partnership with BlueFrame Technology, expects to supply free live streaming video starting at 9:30 a.m. at https://caccnetwork.com/?bfplayvid=262741. Live scoring will also be made available, and updated every three holes, via www.GolfStat.com. Spectators will not be allowed at White Beeches, however, per the Club's current COVID-19 policy.
For the past three years, the CACC conducted its men's golf championship during the fall semester. In Fall 2020, no play was held during the ongoing pandemic. When it was announced that play would resume in the Spring 2021 semester, the conference set up a spring Championship event of one day instead of the usual two days plus practice round. More information is available at https://www.caccathletics.org/sports/golf/2020-21/releases/417CACCN.
Seven of the CACC's nine members that sponsor men's golf have opted into playing this spring. Each of those squads may enter five golfers on Monday, with the top four scores comprising its team total. Second-year Felician head coach Joe Ambrose will pencil his three returnees into the top spots on his lineup card -- redshirt senior Jake Storako (Laurel Springs, N.J./Highland Regional), graduate student Christian Lauchaire (Annandale, N.J./North Hunterdon), and junior Gonzalo Maldonado Felices (Almeria, Spain/Stella Maris).
Storako and Lauchaire return to the Golden Falcons this season on NCAA-granted extensions due to the pandemic. Storako is a two-time CACC All-Tournament performer who is likely to graduate as Felician's all-time leader in stroke average.
"The day it became official that Jake and I would regain eligibility, my focus shifted to finished what we had started here," Lauchaire said. We later found out that Gonzalo would be able to return to the U.S. and rejoin us, which was uncertain. Over the past three years we've built a brotherhood that goes beyond college golf. I knew we had one more run in us. Monday will be a matter of execution and staying focused."
Rounding out the Golden Falcons' lineup will be a pair of freshmen, Nathan Sampson (Leeds, England/Crossley Heath School) and Dylan Molloy (Spotswood, N.J./Spotswood). Both players have notched five collegiate rounds heading into Monday's event.
Felician seeks its first CACC Championship; it was the runner-up in (spring) 2016. Andrew Geesey won the individual title that year, the only Golden Falcon to do so. Felician's all-time history in the CACC Tournament can be viewed at https://felicianathletics.com/sports/mgolf/archive/Golf-CACCs.
"A lot of players might complain that playing 18 holes instead of 36 is a disadvantage, as every shot takes on that much more meaning," Lauchaire said. "But at the end of the day, everyone is playing the same amount of holes under the same conditions. We have go out and play our game and do the best that we can in the moment. Anything can happen on any given day."
The team champion of the Spring 2021 CACC Men's Golf Championship tournament will automatically qualify for the NCAA Division II Atlantic/East Regional Championship. The top five individual finishers, plus ties, will be named CACC All-Tournament.
Felician University engages more than 2,300 undergraduate, graduate, and adult students through programs in Arts & Sciences, Business, Nursing, and Education. Universal Franciscan values of social justice, compassion, and respect for human dignity form an inclusive foundation for transforming the lives of tomorrow's leaders. Felician University was ranked 3rd-best return on investment for private colleges in New Jersey in 2018 by the PayScale.com College ROI Report and is ranked the No. 1 safest college campus in the state by niche.com. Felician University also sponsors 14 varsity intercollegiate sports that compete at the NCAA Division II level. To learn more about Felician University please visit www.felician.edu.
