Pirates slump to eighth in Princeton Invitational

The Seton Hall men’s golf team landed in eighth place at the Princeton Invitational over the weekend, powered by a 1-over-par performance by junior Chris Yeom. After wearing Masters green jackets and taking home the title in the Princeton Invitational last year, the team was not able to emulate the same success at the Springdale Golf Club in Princeton during Masters Weekend 2018. [caption id="attachment_22654" align="aligncenter" width="838"] Photo via SHU Athletics[/caption] Yeom opened the invitational on Friday with a 3-under-par, 68 in the first round. His teammate, Alex Chalk, had quite a promising first round as well, as he shot a 1-under-par, 70. After a day of action, these two Pirates were in second and fifth place, respectively. After the first round, Seton Hall was in third place as a team, trailing Cornell and Penn by only one stroke. The Pirates were, however, unable to rekindle the magic that they had on Sunday last year, as on the second day of the two-day tournament, the squad began to slip. Yeom opened up poorly to begin Saturday, shooting 7-over-par on the front nine of round two. He would bounce back to a degree, shooting 3-under-par in the back-nine to finish the day 4-over, but Yeom had fallen behind the pack. His two-day performance was still good enough to land him 11^th out of the field of 69. Chalk had his fair share of struggles during the second day as well. He shot 8-over-par on Saturday, as he tumbled down all the way to 42^nd, where he tied fellow Pirate Andres Acevedo. Yale took home the tournament crown with a 2-over-par, while the top individual performance came from Mike Graboyes of Cornell, who led the way on Friday with a 5-under-par, 66, and ultimately finished with a 6-under-par for the weekend. The Pirates have little time to sulk in the results of the weekend; however, as they will next travel to State College, Pa, home of the Penn State Nittany Lions. There they will compete in the Rutherford invitational, from April 14-15. Dalton Allison can be reached at dalton.allison@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @DaltonAllison4.