Newburgh, NY- When you join a team as a freshman you spend your time looking up to and learning from the seniors.  For three years you watch and support your teammates each year as they are recognized and celebrated as seniors.  Waiting until its your turn as a senior to have your day and your moment.  Today Jonathan Kara and John Del Bene had their day; and what a day it was.

The Mount took on the Purchase Panthers in a round of Match play.  This type of play is less about your overall score and focused more on winning the hole.  (Match play does not always result in all holes being played.  The scores are reported as 3&2 for example.  This means the player was 3 holes ahead with 2 holes to play, the match would be finished at the 16th holes.)  

The following has been written and submitted by coach Crane.  

What a fun match. It was back and forth all match and had two matches come right down to the 18th hole. Things were led by Corey Sowers who played the best round of golf in his college career, winning his match over Purchases' Matt Kennedy 7&5 for the first point for the Mount.

Rest of the matches were nail bitters.

Matt Ropiak added to the lead with a 2&1 victory over Christian Miesegues.  The Panthers struck back as Steve Mains took a 2&1 victory over John Del Bene.  

It all came down to the last two matches.

On the 13th hole Trevor Zamudio found himself 3 up on Drew Stabinsky while Jon Kara found himself 3 down in his match vs. Clint Murphy.  By the time both matches reached the 18th tee both matches were all square.  This is when the senior Jon Kara took control with a great tee ball then hit his approach to 6 feet of the pin. 2 putts later Kara would clinch the win for the Knights.

Zamudio would find trouble off the tee but would recover and finish off the 4th point for MSMC.

After the match Coach Crane said, "This is why everybody loves match play. I wish we would get to play more of it. This was just a lot of fun today." He went on to say, "I'm so proud of our guys. Purchase is a scrappy young team and in match play, it ain't over till it's over as Yogi would say."

He also added, "Corey did such an excellent job getting us the lead early and so proud of JK to just keep fighting back to secure the win.  Hats off to Coach Erkan and what he has done with his program. We know the Panthers are going to be a team to reckon with in the future."

You know it had to have been a great match, when the coach sends you not only the main points of the match, but title and most of the article.  The excitement and enthusiasm of the match and the subsequent write up really tells you how proud of this team he is.

The Knights have a busy week as today was the first of 3 matches over the next 4 days.