Colgate ended the fall season on a relatively high note with a fourth-place finish in a field of nine teams at Lehigh’s Don Mershon Classic. The event was held on a par-72 golf course at the Saucon Valley Country Club. Colgate was one of five Patriot League teams that participated in the invitational. The Raiders finished behind defending league champion Bucknell, but they defeated Lafayette and both of Lehigh’s teams. The University of Pennsylvania won the Classic with a two-round score of 615, five strokes ahead of the runner-up Bison and 35 strokes better than the Raiders’ score of 650.

Senior Ricky Hayes paced the Raiders with his 10-over-par total of 154 for the weekend, which was good enough for sixth-place in the field of 44 golfers. Junior Montek Mayal and first-year Neil Thompson tied for 18th place in the invitational with a score of 161. Junior Keaton Cross and sophomore David Ake also played for the Raiders, accumulating scores of 165 and 173 respectively, which were good enough for 29th and 38th place. No golfer was better than Penn’s Michael Blodgett, who finished at six-over-par with a two-day total of 150.

The fourth-place finish marked Colgate’s second-best result of the fall season. The weekend also provided a bookend for an up-and-down fall season which was highlighted by the Raiders’ surprising victory in the Colgate Invitational in their first weekend of play. In their three other tournaments, the Raiders finished eighth, eleventh and tenth.

Colgate will look to improve on its autumn successes when it tees off for the spring season in March 2008.