Bulldogs prove again they're among Shore's elite
RFH team preparing for state sectional tournament
BY DOUG McKENZIE
Staff Writer

SCOTT PILLING staff Dan O'Connor and his Rumson-Fair Haven teammates have played well in tournaments this spring - something they hope to do again on Monday in the state sectional tourney in South Jersey.

Despite an impressive 15-6 record in match play, Rumson-Fair Haven golf coach Craig Stoll insists his team is a better tournament team.

"We've been really solid in tournament play," he said, pointing to his team's victory at the Wall Invitational earlier in the spring, as well as sixth- and fifth-place finishes respectively at the Monmouth and Shore Conference Tournaments.

At Monday's SCT, held at the Sea Oaks Golf Club in Little Egg Harbor, the Bulldogs proved to be among the conference's best teams with a team score of 344, just four strokes behind fourth-place Wall Township and six strokes behind third-place Colts Neck.

"It's a real competitive field," Stoll said. "There's 14 teams there, the best 14 in the conference, so when you finish in the top half of the field you definitely did something right."

CBA was the runaway winner of the tournament on Monday, as the Colts posted a score of 322, 12 strokes ahead of second-place Marlboro. The Colts, who won the SCT last year and later went on to capture the Tournament of Champions team title, was led by the tandem of Tom Gliozzo and Brendan O'Brien, who both shot five-over-par 77s. With a playoff nixed due to a scheduling conflict at the course, Gliozzo was handed the individual title following a match of cards.

CBA also got 84s from Brian Anderson and Kevin Clarke en route to routing the field.

The Colts' ability to emerge as the class of the field certainly didn't come as a surprise to Stoll, who said it's easy to pinpoint the secret to their success.

"It's their depth. They've got kids in the back that would be stars at other schools," the seventh-year coach said. "It's like North Carolina and Duke (in college basketball) - they just have so many good players to throw at you."

Depth, however, is also something the Bulldogs possess - maybe not on the scale of CBA, but RFH also has its share of talented golfers.

"We really are five deep. There are no superstars on this team," Stoll said.

Junior Dan O'Connor is the team's No. 1 golfer and the closest thing the Bulldogs have to a superstar. His brother Tim is another consistent player, while senior K.J. Mazurek and junior Will Hewitt round out the top four.

Those four players are experienced golfers who have carried the load for the Bulldogs the last couple of years.

"They've been a very consistent group," Stoll said. "We have a very good group of upperclassmen. Sometimes you get a group that doesn't get any better, sometimes they do. With this group, they've been very consistent throughout. I'm very pleased with the way they've played."

The fifth spot was the team's only question mark heading into the season, but it didn't take long for freshman Sam Warshauer to emerge as a good fit there.

"He's been a pleasant surprise," the coach said. "He's shot to about a 45 [average] in match play, but he's been tough in the tournaments. He shot 75 [at the Wall Invitational] and 85 at another tournament"

On Monday, Dan O'Connor was the low man for the Bulldogs, as he tied for seventh with a round of 80.

Next up for the Bulldogs is a run at the Central/South Jersey Group II tournament title. That tournament, which is to be held Monday at Centerdon Golf Course in Elmer, is a familiar venue to four of the five RFH golfers, which Stoll said should give his team an advantage over some of the teams they'll see down there.

Should the Bulldogs secure a top-two finish, they will advance to the TOC.

"They all played there last year, so they're familiar with the course," the coach said. "We played OK there last year. We finished in the top 10, good enough that we were competitive. I'm not going to say that we're going to finish in the top two this year, but I'd like to think that if things go our way we're certainly good enough to have a shot at qualifying."

The field for the tournament will certainly present a challenge to the Bulldogs.

"It's kind of wide open this year. There's a lot of good teams down there in South Jersey, and we don't see a lot of the competition we're going to see in that tournament," Stoll said. "It's tough right now. For a while now Haddonfield has been the top team, but they've gone down to Group I. And there have been a number of teams that have been right there with them in recent years."

Regardless of who the Bulldogs see in the sectional tournament, Stoll said their preparation doesn't change.

"It really doesn't matter because you can't prepare for the competition," he said. "You can prepare for the course and how you're going to attack it, but you can't control what your opponent does."