Well, I am officially halfway through my final year of collegiate golf. We just finished up the fall season with a third place finish at the Muhlenberg Invitational. I would also like to mention that a fellow Gator, Kyle Jastromb, ended up taking home medalist honors with rounds of 77-73. All in all, it was a tough fall season for our golf program. We ended up finishing 45 strokes behind Ohio Wesleyan in conference play which puts us behind the eight ball as far as getting to the national championship tournament. This means heading into the spring season we will have to win every round in conference play by nine strokes or more in order to catch Ohio Weslyan. Despite our poor play within the conference, we were able to grab a first-place finish at the Nazareth Invitational back in early October.

As for myself, it was another disappointing season to say the least. I played a couple solid rounds in qualifiers, but was never able to get over the hump and play with the top five. It was extremely frustrating to have to sit here at school instead of being on the road with my teammates battling for another shot at nationals. On the flip side, it was kind of nice to have the extra time over the weekend to get more work done, but an overload of school work would have been a nice problem to have if it meant that I was competing on the golf course. During my down time I was able to prepare my proposal for my senior comp project which is required in order to graduate from Allegheny. The project is similar to the type of work someone would have to complete to earn their Master's degree. The student picks a topic within their field of study, and is then expected to write about this topic through intense research. It varies from department to department, but within my major (Politcal Science) we are required to write at least 60 pages. Once this has been completed, the student is then asked to defend their paper in front of a department board usually consisting of two or three professors who attempt to punch holes into your argument. It is quite the project, but at the same time it will look great on a resume and something I can be very proud of as well.

Even after our poor start this fall I still feel like we have the talent to make a serious run at Ohio Wesleyan in the spring. A big positive is the fact that three of the five rounds in conference play are going to be played at our home course, Meadville Country Club. I feel confident that we have the talent to get the job done. All we need to do is get a little momentum to swing in our favor through more consistent play,and we could be having quite the celebration come early May!