Southern California SC staves off Stanford in Gifford Collegiate finals

By Golfweek Staff

USC’s Rico Hoey (Tracy Wilcox)

Rico Hoey’s win on the 17th hole clinched the Gifford Collegiate match-play title for the University of Southern California (USC) at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, California.
USC beat Stanford in the final round of match play in a 7-6 tiebreaker that was determined by the number of holes up each winner was in his match after each team went 2-2-2.
Hoey’s win at the 17th hole was actually nullified at the 18th for a halve against Franklin Huang, but the guarantee of a halve sealed the win for USC.
The Trojans dominated the stroke-play portion of the contest, beating Stanford by 17 strokes.
In the final match-play round, Andrew Levitt and Justin Suh gave the Trojans their two wins, Levitt winning 4 and 3 against Brandon Wu and Suh beating Isaiah Salinda 3 and 2. Freshman Cheng Jin halved his match with Jeffrey Swegle, as did Hoey.
Stanford’s win came by way of World No 1 amateur Maverick McNealy’s 3-and-2 victory over Sean Crocker, and Viraat Badhwar’s win over Jonah Texeira 3 and 1.
It’s the second straight win for USC, as they captured a victory last week at the Cypress Point Classic in the match-play finals over Georgia Tech.

 Northwestern and Washington tied for third, Colorado placed fifth, UCLA sixth, Wisconsin seventh and South Florida eighth.