Talent-Laden Golf Team Could Be Best Ever at Penn College
Tuesday, September 2, 2003
Potentially, this year's golf team could be one of the best ever for Pennsylvania College of Technology.
"I'd like to be very optimistic, but I have to be very conservative because they've got to shoot their rounds. But, if they shoot to their ability . . . we've got some good golfers," said Chet Schuman, who is in his fourth season as coach of the Wildcats.
Penn College opens its season Friday in a six-team Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Conference event at the Wilkes-Barre Municipal course. Also competing will be Johnson College, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, host Luzerne County Community College, Penn State-Schuylkill and Northumberland County Community College.
The reason for Schuman's optimism, albeit cautions, is obvious he returns four sophomores from last year's 20-10 team, including Matt Haile (Shikellamy), who placed second in the end-of-the-season Pennsylvania Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships, and Christian Scheller (Moscow), who finished fourth. Those two earned all-PCAA honors and another returnee, Brandon Gosciminski (Southern Columbia) was named to the all-EPCC squad. The fourth returnee is Kyle Renn (Shikellamy).
According to Schuman, Haile and Scheller are shooting as well as last season right now (scoring in the 70s), and they are being pushed by freshmen Brandon Smith (Wellsboro) and Jeff Kerr II (Bloomsburg).
Also on the team are freshmen Terry Gerow (Covington), Scott Dawson (Danville), Chris Herb (Halifax), Justin Smith (Chambersburg) and Ryan Smithson (Herndon, Va.).
A change in the way league events are run this year, which will have players paired by handicap rather than seeding, should benefit his golfers, said Schuman.
"Good golfers should always be playing with good golfers and that, I think, is going to influence the scores. Sometimes golfers play to their competition and I think (the new format) is going to drive scores down," he said.
Six golfers will compete in each match, with the low four scores counting for team scoring.