Moon Township, Pa. – The Robert Morris University men's golf team, under the direction of 20th-year head coach Jerry Stone, has announced its spring schedule featuring four tournaments prior to the Horizon League Championships scheduled for April 25-27.
RMU will begin its spring slate at the Carpetbagger Classic, hosted by Colgate University on March 20-21. Held at Worthington Manor Golf Course in Urbana, Md., this was on the Colonials' 2020 spring schedule and supposed to be their first time competing in the event, but it along with the remainder of the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
LINK: 2021 Men's Golf Spring Schedule
After a week off, RMU will head about 200 miles southeast to Fayetteville, Pa. for the Fairleigh Dickinson Invitational on April 2-3. Held at Penn National Golf Course, this will be the first time the Colonials have played in an event hosted by the Knights since the 2009-10 season. RMU will hope to repeat what it did that year, as it won the Knights Golf Invitational on Oct. 26, 2009 with a 18-hole total of 24-over 312.
The spring continues the following week when the Colonials travel to Clarksburg, W.Va. for the Health Plan Mountaineer Invitational on April 12-13. Hosted by West Virginia University at Pete Dye Golf Course, RMU last competed in this event in the fall of 2017-18, coming in 15th place with a 54-hole total of 45-over 909.
The Colonials' final tune-up before their debut Horizon League Championships appearance will happen at league foe Wright State's home invitational, scheduled for April 18-19. Played at Heatherwoode Golf Club, RMU finished 11th in 2019-20 at this event with a two-day total of 54-over 754. Despite the struggles then, the team would follow its performance up with the Northeast Conference (NEC) championship two weeks later.
Nine players who played at least one round for the Colonials in the shortened 2019-20 campaign return for 2020-21. RMU also added a trio of freshmen into the fold in Skyler Fox (Beaver Falls, Pa.), Xavier Schwarz (Virginia Water, England), and Deven Stewart (Freeport, Ill.)
Fifth-year Kyle Grube is the most notable of the returnees, as the two-time Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) All-America Scholar and 2018-19 All-NEC First Team pick enters his final season ranking fourth all-time at RMU in stroke average (75.70) and rounds par and under (10). Grube led the Colonials in stroke average in 2019-20 with a mark of 73.50, which slots second in the program's single-season annals. His 2018-19 total of seven rounds par and under is also the second most for a Colonial.
Chase Miller, a junior who also garnered GCAA All-America Scholar recognition in 2019-20, ranks sixth all-time in stroke average at 76.08. Miller was one of two players who played in every event last season and finished third on the team in stroke average (75.14). That was an improvement off an impressive freshman campaign in 2018-19, one that saw him net six rounds at or below par, a pair of top-five finishes, and three top-10 finishes. The Bernville, Pa. native won his collegiate debut tournament in September of 2018, firing a program-record 210 (-3) to capture the Northern Kentucky Fall Collegiate Classic.
RMU also returns one fourth-year senior (Nicholas Mihalo), three redshirt sophomores (Cole Chase, Jimmy Ellis, Chris Sabol), and three true sophomores (Logan Hess, Parker Johnson, Josh Nagy).
Under Stone, the Colonials have won 23 competitions and a pair of NEC championships in 2015 and 2019. RMU has excelled in the classroom as well, earning eight straight GCAA Team Academic Awards and four consecutive GCAA President's Special Recognition designations for posting a team grade point average of 3.5 or higher.
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