Freshman Ricky Schmidt won a scorecard playoff to claim medalist honors as the Lake Forest College men's golf team finished third at the two-day St. Norbert College Invitational over the weekend. The Foresters' score of 307 on Sunday was the best in the eight-team field.
Schmidt was tied-for-seventh with a 76 in Saturday's opening round. He birdied the par-5, 574-yard seventh hole and carded 14 pars on the day. He closed with a 75 on Sunday, the fifth-best score of the round. He bogied the first two and last two holes but was at par or better on each of the 14 in between. His lone birdie of the round came at the par-3, 203-yard first. Two other players matched Schmidt's two-day score of 151 but he was named medalist for having the best second round of the three.
Sophomore Davis DeKorte was next on the team with a two-day score of 154, which was tied-for fifth in the 42-player field. DeKorte had one birdie in his round of 80 on Saturday before carding a career-best 74 on Sunday. He used just 37 shots to get through each half of his second round and had birdies on the ninth, 12th, and 18th holes. DeKorte is averaging just 76.5 shots on his last four rounds.
With a 78 in round one and a 77 on Sunday, sophomore Durham Ghelfi finished just a shot behind DeKorte and tied-for-eighth overall. He had a team-high seven birdies on the weekend, including one each day on the par-5 third and 14th holes. He was two shots under par on the four par-5s in the two rounds combined.
Forester freshman Parker Hill was tied-for-23rd at 164 and sophomore Benjamin Crosby 27th at 166. Crosby's 82 on Saturday and Hill's 81 on Sunday contributed to Lake Forest's team score. Crosby recorded a par on 20 of 36 holes on the weekend while Hill had three birdies and 19 pars.
Freshman Elijah Collins played as an individual and finished tied-for-36th with a score of 173. His 83 on Saturday included back-to-back birdies on six and seven.
Lake Forest was fourth after posting a score of 316 on Saturday. Sunday's 307 moved the Foresters up a spot and to within two shots of runner-up Carroll University's two day score of 621. St. Norbert won the event at 610.
The Foresters' next tournament will be the three-day Midwest Conference Championships, which will begin Thursday morning at 10:00 at Aldeen Golf Club in Rockford, Illinois.
