South Hadley, Mass. - Sophomore Max Edminster (Takoma Park, Md.) finished third overall with a score of 74 to lead the Trinity College Bantams to second of eight teams at the New England Small College Athletic Conference #2 championship event at The Ledges Golf Club this afternoon.  Middlebury won the team title at 304 and Trinity was three behind the Panthers and one extremely important stroke ahead of third-place Tufts at 307.  The 2021 NESCAC Champion is determined by the combined team score in last week's and this week's conference championship tournaments at The Ledges.  Tufts won last week's tournament by a single stroke over the Bantams, shooting a 300 as a squad to 301 for Trinity, and today's scores put the two teams in a tie for second for the two days at  608 apiece.

Middlebury won the NESCAC title with a combined score of 607, just one better than both Trinity and Tufts, and the Bantams were named the NESCAC Runner-Up based on the tiebreaking fifth-player score in today's round. Middlebury has notified the NCAA the team will not be participating in the NCAA Championship this year. Per the NESCAC men's golf championship manual, if the conference champion is unable to participate or has opted out of the NCAA Championship, the runner-up/second-place team will receive the AQ. Therefore, Trinity will receive the conference's automatic qualifier to the NCAA Championship.

Trinity was down in the team standings early in today's round, but rallied late to earn second place for the second week in a row.  Edminster finished a single stroke better than junior teammate Jacob Steckler (Barrington, R.I.), who tied for fourth with a 75, while senior captain Ricardo Leme (Lake Villa, Ill.) and junior Maahin Gulati (Weston, Mass.) were both among the golfers tied for 14th place at 79.  Bantam sophomore Nicholas Li (Vancouver, British Columbia) finished tied for 21st overall with an 81, three shots better than Tufts' Jack Meehan who finished with an 84, to make Trinity the runner-up and send them to the NCAA Division III Championships later this month in West Virginia.  The 2018 and 2019 NESCAC Champions, Trinity will be competing in its third consecutive NCAA Championship Tournament, which did not take place last spring, in 2021

"I am proud of the way we finished today," said Trinity Head Men's Golf Coach Matt Greason.  "We had some hiccups in the middle but really dug down and battled back down the stretch."