Golf wraps up play at Williams Invitational

Williamstown, MA- The Trinity College Bantams shot the lowest team score of the weekend (290) to pull away from the 19 team field and win the 2017 Williams College Invitational Tournament. The event was played as always at the par-71 Taconic Golf Club, which was playing slightly shorter than full length during the second round as some tees were moved around to give players something extra to think about.

Trinity's winning score of 584 was 15 shots better than the 599 that won the tournament for Williams College a year ago, a testament to the quality of golf being played this fall by several teams. The host Ephs fell short by five shots this year, recording a 294 on Sunday that placed them in second with a score of 589.

No other team cracked 600 on the weekend, with the next best score being a 601 from Western New England College. Then came another 10 shot gap between the Golden Bears and the Babson College Beavers, who finished at 610, which was just one shot clear of fifth place Middlebury.

MCLA finished in 19th place over the two day event.  Josh Fortier finished in 88th to lead the team.

Golf is a team sport won on the strength of individual performances, of which Trinity had plenty of great ones. Their line-up featured the eventual champion Will Rosenfield, who also medaled when Trinity won the event in 2015, at a final score of 139 (-3). His classmate, junior Taylor Kay-Green, finished in a tie for third at 145, and Nate Choukas found himself comfortably in the top 10 with a score of 147 (T-6).

Williams senior Grant Raffel, playing in his final competitive round at Taconic, broke par with a two-under 69 that earned him individual runner-up honors. Other notable individual performances include Rhode Island College's Austin Cilley (145, T-3), Middlebury's Jeffery Giguere (146, 5th), Western New England's John Abbot (147, T-6), and Manhattanville's Chandler Longfellow (147, T-6).