Though the men’s golf team’s sixth-place finish in the NESCAC Championship Qualifiers was not strong enough to put them through to the championship this spring, first year Thomas Dunleavy’s fourth place overall finish earned him a spot on the All-NESCAC First Team.
Dunleavy is the first Bowdoin student to make the team since Jeff Cutter ’09 in 2008. With such success in only his first year, Dunleavy said he looks forward to what he and the team can accomplish in the future.
“We had a good weekend,” said Dunleavy. “We wanted to crack the top four, which would mean we would move on to the NESCAC championship, but it was a fun weekend for all of us and for me personally successful.”
At the end of the first day of the qualifier, Dunleavy was tied for second, just one stroke behind the leader. Another strong performance the following day helped him finish with a score of 144, with only five strokes separating him and first place.
“I look forward to making the NESCAC and National Championship in the years ahead,” Dunleavy said. “It’s going to be tough, but I think it’s doable.”
The men’s golf team has shown a lot of potential this season. On October 8, the team won its first Colby Bates Bowdoin Championship since 2013. The team outshot both Bates and Colby by a margin of 21 strokes, a decisive victory as last year only 12 strokes separated all three teams.
Captain Thomas Spagnola ’17 led the team with a score of 75, followed by Dunleavy with 77 and captain Martin Bernard ’17 with 78 to put together a solid outing for the Polar Bears.
While the individual accomplishments are important, the players are just as focused on their cohesive performance. Dunleavy credits the captains for creating the supportive team chemistry on and off the course.
“At times golf feels like an individual sport because at the base of it that’s what it is,” Dunleavy said. “There can be no communication or guidance between the two players on the course … but we get around this by supporting each other when things go good or bad.”
The Polar Bears closed out their season with a sixth place finish at the Southern Maine Invitational on October 9-10. Spagnola was the top performer for the Polar Bears, tying for 13th overall. After the first day of play, Bowdoin was in third, but dropped to sixth overall by the end of the tournament as only nine strokes separated the third through eighth-place teams in a highly competitive pool.