Last weekend the men’s golf team traveled to Annapolis, Maryland in order to compete in the Navy Spring Invitational. The Raiders finished in 17th place out of 18 schools. Junior Montek Mayal, sophomores David Ake and Kyle Blum and first-year Neil Thompson competed for Colgate, and they put up a team score of 635 on Navy’s par-71 golf course. The Navy Gold team, which won the event, scored 589. Midshipman golfer Ben Hayes shot three-under-par to lead all golfers.

Though the Raiders did not do well in the rankings, Head Coach Mac Gifford believes in his team’s potential, and ascribes his team’s relatively poor performance to factors outside the team’s control.

“I think we did fairly well,” Gifford said. “But [Colgate’s number one golfer and senior Ricky Hayes] got saddled with some work, and school work takes precedence here at Colgate. So I decided to take golfers who lacked experience to see who I want to take to the Patriot League Championships.”

Coach Gifford praised Colgate’s student athletes, and alluded to the Raiders being more of a force in Patriot League golf in the coming years.

“Colgate is student athletics at its finest,” Gifford said. “The kids want to do well in school and compete at the highest level possible.”

Attempting the difficult business of telling what the future holds, Gifford added this last comment.

“We could win this thing, if not now, than in the near future,” Gifford said. “We just need the mind set for it.”