In a year defined by the development of young talent, the Bradley men’s golf team is ready to continue its progress this spring.
The team opened its spring season last weekend at the Invitational at Savannah Harbor Georgia, finishing 18th of 19 teams. Despite finishing towards the bottom of the leaderboard, head coach Jeff Roche urged fans to be patient.
“We’re looking at getting a little bit better in all these areas and at some point, it will start to show up from a results standpoint as far as where we finish,” Roche said. “With a semester under their belt, [the team] looked a little more comfortable, now we just got to get it to translate into a better finish.”
Redshirt-senior Alex Ciaramitaro highlighted the tournament for Bradley finishing tied for sixth overall in the individual standings, scoring a career-best 4-under-par 68 in the final round. It was the lowest round by any Bradley golfer in nearly a year.
Roche credited Ciaramitaro’s performance as well as his work ethic.
“He worked very hard over the winter and it was nice to see it kind of come together for him this week and give him a nice head start into the spring,” Roche said.
Other notable results included junior Jalen Hodges finishing with a total 232 to tie for 79th overall and freshman Josh Kirkham earning a share of 86th place with a total score of 234. Despite the positive takeaways, there is still improvement to be made. Freshmen Nick Armbrust and John Stillman rounded out the scoring with 94th and 95th place finishes.
For the spring season, the roster adds a bit of depth with freshman transfer Brady Kreiter joining the Braves from South Mountain Community College. Now that roster is six, there is not enough room for the whole team to travel. Although he didn’t travel with the team, Roche believes Kreiter provides competition that was absent during the fall season.
“He’s going to add some depth to our roster,” Roche said. “Not every spot is guaranteed now as far as traveling goes, so now you can create a very competitive atmosphere which you can’t really simulate very well when everybody knows that they’re going.”
As a result of the fall season, the team used the winter for players to adjust to the intensity of collegiate golf. The spring will hopefully see more positive results teamwide.
Roche explained the overall change of competition for the players once they arrived at the university.
“There’s a big difference from playing in the summer when you’re playing for yourself to then going into college golf where everybody on the other teams are good,” Roche said.
With three weeks to go until the next tournament, the overall focus of the team is shifting towards getting rounds under their belt to gain experience. With outdoor practices starting this weekend, the goal is to piece together how the skill practices during winter translate to the course come tournament time.
“We’re going to keep playing and competing just to get rid of those nerves but then also to shoot some lower scores,” Roche said.
Men’s golf is back in action March 9-10 at the Grover Page Classic in Jackson, Tennessee. The women will tee off for the first time this spring this afternoon at 3 at the Rio Verde Invitational in Arizona.
