Men’s Golf defends home course, wins third consecutive Rendleman title

SALISBURY, N.C. – The Catawba College men's golf team finished the 31st rendition of the Richard Rendleman Invitational with its first under-par tournament in program history, erasing a seven-shot deficit on Tuesday to claim the top prize.

A challenging setup at the Country Club of Salisbury added a significant amount of strokes to the leaderboard, but Catawba navigated the situation better than the rest at a seven-over par score of 291 in the third round. Against par, the Catawba Indians logged their best performance ever at two-under par as their total score of 850 stands second in 54-hole tournament records.

Ilia Antoniadis carded a 209 (-4), completing his first Rendleman with a one-over final round, to take home fourth place out of 75 competitors. Paul Esnault shot an even-par 71, his stroke average through nine rounds this season, for a fifth-place finish. Also bagging a top-10 spot was Allan Lockwood whose 214 (+1) landed seventh – Catawba's top three scores entered the program's top 16 list of lowest 54-hole scores.

Pranay Kapur ended the event at 220 (+7) for T-19th place while Connor Carter jumped 16 spots with a two-over third round, totaling 228 shots (+15) in a T-36th effort.

The second Catawba group tied for sixth place, sharing the spot with national vote-receiving Belmont Abbey's "A" team, behind a 216 (+3) from Ryan Masterton who placed T-10th. Justin Nagy birdied four consecutive holes on day two to take the 16th position with a three-round score of 218 (+5). Luke Nelson notched a T-25th placement using his 223 (+10) as Tanner Frye (232, +19) and Hayden Mincey (238, +25) also represented Catawba in T-54th and T-62nd, respectively.

Emory & Henry held a sizable advantage before day two kicked off, but a 15-over par round allowed the Catawba Indians to overtake the Wasps by one shot. Erskine finished nine strokes off the lead at 859 (+7) for bronze, followed in the top five by Emmanuel (882, +30) and King (884, +32). Laying down one of the round's two under-par outings, Laurenz Meifels (205, -8) of Erskine topped the field on the individual leaderboard with a spectacular 66-69-70 scorecard.

All-Tournament Team

Laurenz Meifels, Erskine

Jordan Kaung Kyaw, Emory & Henry

Will Watson, Emory & Henry

Ilia Antoniadis, Catawba

Paul Esnault, Catawba

The Catawba men's program wraps up fall competition on Oct. 21 and 22 at the McCoy Wright Currahee Collegiate Invitational hosted by Anderson in Toccoa, Ga.