Hartford freshman Zack Ungvarsky, younger brother of Binghamton’s Aaron Ungvarsky, drained a 25-foot birdie putt on the first hole of the playoff to lift Hartford past the Bearcats in the America East Golf Championship at The Links of Hiawatha Landing on Sunday.
The Bearcats collapsed this weekend, blowing a nine-shot lead after the first round of the America East Championship before losing in a sudden death playoff to Hartford, its archrival. After shooting a 297 team score on Saturday, the Bearcats stumbled with a disappointing 311, while Hartford shot a 302 on Sunday to force the playoff.
The conference’s sudden death playoff format begins on the first hole and takes the top four scorers from each team. On the first hole, the Bearcats made four pars, Hartford made three pars and the younger Ungvarsky’s birdie putt, which proved to be the difference.
‘He putted well all day, especially when he played with me the first day because we were paired together,’ said BU’s Ungvarsky about his brother’s performance. ‘It was nice to play with him in my final tournament as a Bearcat. He had almost the same putt on the first hole that I had and missed, and he read it beautifully and drained it. It was nice to see but it also hurt because I knew that it hurt my team.’
Aaron Ungvarsky shot 73-70 to finish first of the 15 players in the field in individual scoring. He also hit a hole-in-one on the sixth hole, a par three.
Despite the loss, he had a tremendous individual performance in his last tournament as a Bearcat. With his father, grandfather and brother all watching him, he played well enough to win the tournament as an individual, and his hole-in-one is something he and his teammates will never forget.
‘I was hitting the ball great for the past few weeks, my putting was incredible and nothing was real different this time around,’ the elder Ungvarsky said. ‘I hit every fairway and missed one green in the last round, and came very close to making a hole-in-one on the par three 13th when my ball hit the bottom of the pin and stopped two inches from the hole. On the sixth hole, my ball landed about three feet short of the hole and just rolled in.’
But with the exception of Ungvarsky, everyone else struggled heavily in the final round for one reason or another, resulting in the blown lead.
Junior Zach Vinal shot 70-82 to finish fourth, senior Jeff Wolniewicz finished fifth with 77-78, senior Tom Hackett shot 77-81 to finish eighth and sophomore J.J. Shearer shot 82-83 to finish in a tie for eleventh.
‘I think the guys were just wanting to go to the NCAA tournament so badly,’ head coach Nick Lasky said. ‘Since it’s getting so close, it is constantly on their minds, which encourages them to try too hard and think too much when they are on the golf course in tight pressure situations like this weekend.
‘In golf, it just doesn’t work if you are trying too hard.’