Pirates finish 9th at Princeton Invitational

[caption id="attachment_14036" align="aligncenter" width="660"] Seton Hall Athletics[/caption] The Hall’s men’s golf team placed ninth in the Princeton Invitational at the Springdale Golf Club this past weekend as three Pirates shot even-par or better in the final round of the tournament. Ivy League competitors Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Yale, and Princeton also participated in addition to Big East rival Georgetown and interstate schools Rider and Rutgers. On the first day of the tournament, the Pirates were able to earn an eighth place ranking. The team was led by junior Lloyd Jefferson Go on Saturday, who was coming off his eighth top-five finish of his career at the 2016 Redhawk Invitational. Go shot an even-par 71 in the first round of the competition, which tied him for 10^th place among 81 individual golfers. The Hall collectively shot for 12-over-par, 296 in the first round. No. 3, 4 and 5 Pirate golfers Cory Wilson, Kevin O’Brien and Chris Yeom tied for 38^th place overall in the individual rankings. The trio all shot for 4-over-par, 75. Additionally, No. 2 Pirates golfer Gen Nagai, shot for 7-over-par, 78 in Saturday’s events. On Sunday, the Pirates presumed play, starting with the second round of the tournament originally intended to be a part of Saturday’s competition. Inclement weather caused the second round of the tournament to be rescheduled to Sunday. Chris Yeom led the Pirates with a 1-under par, 70 performance in the final round. In the 36-hole event shortened due to the weather, Yeom finished tied for 20^th place with a 3-over-par, 75-70-145. Lloyd Jefferson Go, the top Pirate finisher for the tournament, shot for 1-over-par, 71-72-143, to earn a 12^th place finish among 82 individual golfers. Other Pirate performances included Kevin O’Brien, who tied for 41^st place with a line of 75-74-149, Cory Wilson, tied for 54^th place with a line of 75-77-152, and Gen Nagai, tied for 59^th place with a 78-75-153 performance. Seton Hall’s team effort was five strokes improved in Sunday’s final round with a 7-over-par, 291 output. For the entire tournament, the Hall finished at 19-over-par with a 296-291-587, enough to earn a ninth place team standing out of 15 competitors. Up next, the Pirates make a return on Saturday, April 16 to take a three-round event at the Rutherford Intercollegiate in State College, Pennsylvania. The Rutherford Intercollegiate will be the last tournament before the Pirates partake in the 2016 Big East Championship. Josh Rhim can be reached at Joshua.Rhim@student.shu.edu or @JRJoshRhimSHU on Twitter.