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Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. — The Florida men’s golf team continued a spring tradition of sorts — winning the first tournament of the season on the First Coast.
And the University of North Florida’s Nick Gabrelcik has a tradition of his own going in winning college tournaments hosted by one of the two area NCAA Division I schools.
The Gators rallied with a 4-under 276 team score on Tuesday at the TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley Course and came from four shots off the lead to start the day to win the Sea Best Invitational at 6-over par 846, nudging Liberty by six shots. UNF finished third at 13-under.
It was Florida’s fifth victory in the tournament hosted by Jacksonville University and the first since 2017. The Gators beat Liberty in a playoff for the team title in last year’s Timuquana Collegiate that began the spring schedule.
John Dubois and Ricky Castillo both shot 67 for UF, with Dubois tying for second and Castillo tying for fourth. Yuxin Lin (70) and Fred Biondi (72) tied for 26th.
It trumped the Flames’ Kieran Vincent (68, tie for second), Jonathan Yaun (70), and Austin Barbin (73), who both tied for 15th. When Florida finished it had a five-shot lead over the Flames, whose players had anywhere from three to five holes left.
”It wasn’t over until their best two players were on No. 18,” Florida coach J.C. Deacon said. “Jeff Thomas is a great coach and they’ve got a lot of great players over there and it took a great final round for us to beat them. They wouldn’t go away and stop fighting.”
Deacon said the week was indicative of a team-wide effort to erase a lackluster fall season in which UF had finishes of a tie for eighth, 12th and a tie for fifth — the latter at Isleworth.
”We didn’t have a very good fall so we have been a very motivated group,” Deacon said. “I’ve been super-impressed by how hard the guys have worked this winter. It started back on Oct. 20 and the guys have had an awesome off-season. I’m so happy for that hard…
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Source : yahoo
