Mike Amato '11 tore up the Captains Course at Cape Cod the past two days at the New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championship to help lead the Bears to a seventh place finish in their last tournament of the fall. His opening round par score of 72 led the field of 44 teams after Monday's play.
"It felt good to be at the top of the leaderboard," Amato said.
John Giannuzzi '10 scored an 81 along with senior co-captain Chris Hoffman '09 on the first day. Conor Malloy '09, the team's other co-captain, shot an 84 and Joe Rued '09 finished with a 91 to put the Bears in ninth place at 318.
Malloy's 75 paced Brown on Tuesday to a 309, along with a 76 from Giannuzzi and a 78 from Amato, who finished eighth overall. It was his highest finish in a college tournament that he could remember, and he did it at one of the largest tournaments in the country. Rued shot an 80 for the final scored round. Bryant took the team title, shooting a 604.
"(Amato) was a little nervous on the second day, as he should be," Head Coach Michael Hughes said. "Conor continued to play well as our No. 1 player, we rely on him to post the best scores."
Conditions were not as up to par for the last fall competition as the team would have liked. According to Amato, the 30-degree temperatures at tee time combined with 30 mile-per-hour winds out on the Cape restricted swing movement and limited the distance on their shots.
"(The conditions) hurt a lot of other people more than me -- recovery was key for me," Amato said. "I have good damage control ... and the others (the teams we were competing against) had a hard time coping."
Hughes concurred on the weather.
"It was extremely windy- the winning score was three above par," Hughes said. "Our guys performed great."
This strong finish along with the team's 10th place finish at the ECAC Championships last weekend bodes well for the spring. Last year the Bears finished eighth at the Ivy League Championships.
"We need to gather our consistency, get the best rounds of the fall and shoot that at the Ivy Championship," Hughes said. "We'll set some goals for the winter and just continue to move forward."
