The FCIAC annually has many very good golfers during the fall season of boys’ golf, and once again those young golfers shot plenty of good rounds to achieve their own individual successes while also contributing to their respective teams’ accomplishments.
Trumbull won the school’s third FCIAC team championship and its first one in 39 years with a one-stroke victory over Greenwich in some great tight competition among the top five teams. Mac Lawton of Brien McMahon won the Hap Holohan Tournament on the first playoff hole after he and defending champion Aryan Gautam of Trumbull each shot a 75 for the two lowest scores of the tourney.
Those were a couple of the major achievements to highlight the 2024 boys golf fall season in the FCIAC.
Miles Tibor shot a 76 for the third lowest score at the 2024 FCIAC Boys Golf Tournament to lead Trumbull’s balanced scoring lineup when the Eagles accumulated their team score of 315 on their own home Tashua Knolls Golf Course in Trumbull to win the team title by one stroke over Greenwich on Oct. 17.
Stephen Miklos shot a 36 on the back nine to finish with a 77, while Mark Lumpinski and Gautam each carded an 81 to contribute to the Eagles winning Trumbull High School’s first conference championship since 1985.
AJ Einslein had the second lowest score of 73 and teammate Graham Geisler shot a 79 to lead the Greenwich Cardinals to second place with their team score of 316.
Lucas Schacter of Fairfield Warde and Wilton’s Hudson Hagmann were the tourney’s co-medalists as they each fired a 72.
Einslein had that 73 for the second lowest score, and Tibor’s 76 was the third lowest. Trumbull’s Miklos, Darien’s Daniel Xing and New Canaan’s Patrick Saxe each carded a 77 to finish in a three-way tie for fifth place.
Sawyer Dalzell of Staples and Darien’s Matthew West tied for eighth place with a 78 which was the fifth lowest score. Last year Dalzell and teammate Harrison Browne shared medalist honors with a 73 to lead the Wreckers to the FCIAC championship with a one-stroke victory over Fairfield Warde. The Wreckers had a team score of 307 and Warde had a 308 on the same Tashua Knolls course.
Brooks Thompson of New Canaan, Henry Resnick and Ryan Morrice of Ridgefield, and Geisler, Greenwich’s second lowest scorer, all had a 79 to finish in a four-way tie for 10th place.
The competition for the team championship was so close that the top four teams all finished within two strokes of each other and the top five teams were within four strokes of each other. Fairfield Warde and Darien tied for third place with a 317, two strokes behind the champion Trumbull Eagles, and New Canaan (319) was four strokes behind Trumbull.
The format for the FCIAC Boys Golf Tournament includes eight teams with five golfers each and each team’s four lowest scores are added up to determine the team scores.
Staples placed sixth with a 322 and was followed by Ridgefield (323) and Wilton (326).
So impressive was Trumbull’s improvement as a team compared to last year was the irony that the Eagles won their conference championship one year after they were not among the eight teams who competed in the 2023 FCIAC Boys Golf Tournament.
The top eight teams in the final standings from the regular season qualified for the FCIAC Boys Golf Tournament.
Coach Jeffrey Jones’ Trumbull’s Eagles utilized their same ingredients of quality golfing, balance and depth during the regular season to finish with the best record of 13-1. Darien and New Canaan both had 11-2 records, Greenwich was 11-2-1 and followed by Staples (9-3), Ridgefield (8-5), Fairfield Warde (7-5), and Wilton (6-5-1).
The Hap Holohan Tournament is the FCIAC’s annual open championship tournament for individuals. Lawton of McMahon and Gautam, the defending champ from Trumbull, each had a 75 for the lowest scores on the par-71 Country Club of Darien course before Lawton dethroned Gautam on the first playoff hole.
Dalzell of Staples and Schachter of Warde tied for third place with a 77; Phillip Sullivan of Staples and West of Darien tied for fifth place with a 78; Caden Apinish of Ridgefield, Wilton’s Hagmann, and New Canaan’s Thompson finished in a three-way tie for seventh place with a 79; and Greenwich’s Einslein placed 10th with an 80.
This was the fourth year that boys golf was a fall sport for the FCIAC after it being held during the previous spring high school sports seasons through the 2019 season. The spring high school sports seasons in 2020 were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Boys golf is a fall sport for many teams in the state and it’s also still a spring sport for many more boys golf teams statewide.
Brady Anderson of Fairfield Warde shot a 72 for the lowest score of any FCIAC golfer at the 2024 CIAC Division I Fall Golf Tournament. Anderson placed fourth while leading Warde’s Mustangs to a tie for fourth place at that Division I state championship tourney.
William Neeb of New Milford fired a 69 for medalist honors. Fairfield Prep’s Caden Piselli (70) was runner-up and Robby Rosati (71) placed third to lead the Jesuits to the state team title by six strokes. Their team score was 301. Conard and New Milford tied for second with a 307.
Fairfield Warde and Glastonbury tied for fourth with a 312, one stroke lower than Farmington.
Five FCIAC teams finished in places 7-11. Darien had a 315 for the second lowest score among conference teams and was followed by Ridgefield (317), Staples (318), Greenwich (321), and Wilton (322). Trumbull (329) placed 15th and New Canaan (335) was tied for 16th with William Hall.
The Michael Chappa Memorial Tournament annually played at Longshore Golf Club in Westport is a tourney that many of the top players from throughout the state enjoy competing in. It is a two-man, best-ball invitational tournament.
Several schools had two teams in the tournament and as it turned out it was the two Fairfield Prep duos who placed in the top two spots.
The Fairfield Prep No. 1 team of Rosati and Piselli won the event with an 8-under-par score of 61 to nip the Fairfield Prep No. 2 team of Luke Kowalchik and Luke Hoglund by one stroke.
There were six FCIAC teams who shot even par or lower.
Greenwich’s No. 1 duo of Enslein and Geisler and Warde’s No. 2 team of Zach Magner and Schacter tied for fourth place with a 67.
The Staples No. 2 team of Phillip Sullivan and Gus Palmer tied for sixth place with a 68.
There were four teams from the FCIAC among the eight total which had an even par score of 69, including two New Canaan teams. Those four conference teams were the Andrew Brandt-Hugo Sutton duo and the Thompson-Saxe pair from New Canaan, the Staples No. 1 team of Dalzell and Chris Taylor, and Wilton’s Hagmann and Boden Davi.
The five players selected to the 2024 All-FCIAC Boys Golf Team were Gus Palmer of Staples, Michael Jones of St. Joseph, Hudson Hagmann of Wilton, and Trumbull’s Stephen Miklos and Miles Tibor.
The six players who made the FCIAC All-East Team were George Ives, Brooks Thompson, and Patrick Saxe of New Canaan; Daniel Xing and George Brown of Darien; and Fairfield Warde’s Lucas Schachter.
The six players picked to the FCIAC All-West Team were Uvi Kapoor and Aruyan Gautam of Trumbull, Sawyer Dalzell of Staples, Ridgefield’s Ryan Morrice, Greenwich’s AJ Einslein, and Westhill’s Samir Muslim.