The University of Connecticut men’s golf team will play its final regular season tournament at the 49th-annual Rutherford Invitational, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday at the Penn State Blue Course, according to an April 17 announcement.
The event is significant as it serves as the team’s last competition before the BIG EAST Championship. The Huskies are among thirteen teams participating, including host Penn State—which has won 31 of the previous 48 events—along with Yale, Loyola Chicago, Binghamton, Long Island, Towson, St. John’s, Rhode Island, George Mason, St. Thomas, Bucknell and defending champion Delaware.
UConn enters this tournament after a comeback victory at the Golfweek Stifel Spring Challenge. In that event, three UConn golfers finished in the top ten and helped secure their first team trophy of the season by finishing two strokes ahead of UAB with a total score of 849 (-15) over three rounds.
Sophomore Kai-Jun Huang from Taipei led UConn with his best performance yet for the Huskies by finishing second overall—just one stroke behind first place—with a score of 208 (-8), his lowest tournament total this year. Junior Brad Sawka recorded his fourth top-ten finish this season and leads UConn with a per-round average of 70.5; he has posted twenty rounds at par or better. Senior Connor Goode also achieved his fourth top-ten result last time out and maintains an under-par average round score of 71.6 this season.
The rest of UConn’s lineup includes freshman Brennan Korn and sophomore Matt Costello; freshman Brayden Jenard will compete as an individual participant. Saturday’s play will feature thirty-six continuous holes beginning between 7:30 and 9:36 a.m., while Sunday’s final round starts from split tees at 8 a.m.
After this weekend’s competition in Pennsylvania, UConn will head to Bluffton for the BIG EAST Championship on May 2-4.
