Tag: Stanford Cardinal

College golf: Alabama, Ohio State, Stanford impress on National Signing Day

Junior golfers signed their National Letters of Intent earlier this week and there were some clear winners across the country.

The pens have been put to paper and college golf’s Class of 2020 is officially starting to take shape.

Junior golfers around the country were finally able to sign and send their National Letters of Intent to the school of their choice on Wednesday, taking the next step in their careers as student-athletes.

After taking some time to break down and analyze both the men’s and women’s signings, there was a clear winner to the day and plenty of other storylines to follow before the players get to campus next fall.

Here’s what Golfweek’s Julie Williams and Adam Woodard learned from National Signing Day.

National Signing Day: Women | Men | Best Photos
More: Skoler finds maturity through journey to Virginia

Stanford men win the day

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better class in 2020 than the group Cardinal coach Conrad Ray recruited to The Farm. Stanford signed three of the top 10 players in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings for 2020: No. 2 Karl Vilips, No. 6 Jake Beber-Frankel and No. 9 Michael Thorbjornsen.

“Depth is the name of the game,” Ray said of his team. “The lineup is wide open with those three guys, I think all three can come in and play right away based off what they’ve done, but you never know until they get on campus.”

Jake Beber-Frankel shakes hands with a spectator after the second round of the 2019 Boys Junior PGA Championship. (Photo: Hailey Garrett/PGA of America)

Ray called Vilips an “alpha dog” and said Thorbjornsen has “those days where you’re just like ‘holy mackerel this guy’s a freak.’” Beber-Frankel is “every bit as talented” as the others, but plays with panache and flair that pairs well with his impressive hair.

Ray didn’t want to make comparisons to other 2020 recruiting classes, but he did say 2020 is the best class the Cardinal have had in quite some time.

Florida men get better with youth

Head coach JC Deacon has something special cooking down in Gainesville. While starting an underclassmen-heavy lineup, his young Gators have instantly made an impact as the freshman trio of Ricky Castillo, Quentin Debove and John DuBois currently rank Nos. 2-4 on the team in scoring average.

Deacon tapped into the Florida’s rich junior golf market (and England’s), signing Ryan Hart, Jonah Leach, Tyler Wilkes and Joe Pagdin to further bolster his already-young and impressive squad. Expect the Gators to be national title contenders in the coming years.

More: No rest for Aidan Kramer, a scholar, golfer and philanthropist

Cardinal women reload after LPGA loss(es?)

It’s no surprise that the Stanford women also had a strong signing day, inking commitments from two players in Golfweek’s top 10 among the class of 2020: No. 6 Rachel Heck and No. 8 Sadie Englemann.

If only they could play this spring.

Senior Albane Valenzuela, ranked No. 2 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, opted to leave the program last week in order to live out her LPGA and Olympic dreams after earning status for the 2020 season at the recent Q-Series. Valenzuela tied for sixth, while teammate Andrea Lee, No. 3 in the WAGR, also earned status by finishing T-30. Lee has yet to announce her decision.

Ohio State men lock down a local

There’s something to be said for keeping your best in-state talent in state. A cold climate doesn’t make that an easy sell for Ohio State head coach Jay Moseley, and who could blame a kid for wanting to head south?

But Moseley, in his fourth season leading the Buckeye men, has not only been able to keep Ohio’s best talent, but cultivate it. That continues with recent signee Maxwell Moldovan.

When he arrives next year, Moldovan, of Uniontown, Ohio, will help fill a void left by recent graduates – and Ohio natives – Will Grimmer, a two-time U.S. Open qualifier, and Daniel Wetterich, runner-up at the Western Amateur and now a Korn Ferry Tour card holder. Grimmer arrived in Columbus the same year as Moseley and Wetterich transferred in from Xavier a year later. (This season’s roster, by the way, includes freshman Jackson Chandler, who shared the 2018 Ohio State High School title with Moldovan.)

Moldovan is No. 5 in the Golfweek Junior Rankings. He’s the reigning Ohio Amateur champion, and Polo Golf Junior Classic champion. Days before signing his national letter of intent, Moldovan was named the AJGA Rolex Player of the Year and a Rolex First-Team All-American.

Not since 1993 has Ohio State signed one of those, but it’s not the kind of talent you can let slip away.

Alabama gets a double reload

No program experienced a professional exodus quite like Alabama did at the end of last fall. The women lost Kristen Gillman and Lauren Stephenson after the LPGA Q-Series in October and Davis Riley decided to turn professional after Thanksgiving.

Neither Alabama team advanced to the NCAA Championship in May, and the men failed to crack the top 50 in the rankings this fall. An infusion is coming with the class of 2020, though.

If it seems like Canon Claycomb was everywhere on Wednesday, it’s probably because he was. Claycomb, who checked in not just at the top of his class but at the top of Golfweek’s Junior Rankings, garnered nearly 700 Twitter “likes” for signing his NLI and later made a cameo on Golf Channel.

Claycomb, who lives in Orlando, Florida, brings every experience from practicing with PGA Tour players on the Lake Nona range to playing the Junior Ryder Cup to sharing an instructor with Justin Thomas (and sometimes texting JT with questions).

For the women, head coach Mic Potter kept things familiar, securing signatures from four-time Alabama Girls’ Junior winner Michaela Morard as well as Italian Benedetta Moresco, whose older sister Angelica is currently a junior for the Tide.

Both women were chosen to represent their respective sides in the Junior Solheim Cup, and interestingly, walked into the opening ceremonies side-by-side.

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2020 NFL draft: Paulson Adebo scouting report

Everything you need to know about Stanford cornerback Paulson Adebo

Paulson Adebo | CB | Stanford

Height | 6-1

Weight | 190

College Bio Page

Career Stats

Strengths

Teams like length at the cornerback position, and Adebo certainly fits that criterion.

His 6-foot-1 frame bears lengthy arms and the size to match up physically with some of the league’s taller wide receivers. Adebo has the physicality in his skill set to jam receivers in press-man coverage, and he does a very good job of using his hands to counter release techniques and shut his opponents down. He is also a willing tackler who takes good angles and possesses the play strength to bring ball carriers down.

Adebo is more than just a big and physical corner, though, as he blends intelligence and athleticism into his game, as well. He is a patient defender who times his jumps on routes very well and fires out of his stance with great acceleration for his size. His hip fluidity is intriguing: he flips his hips with ease and has the athleticism to mirror his receivers’ routes consistently. If you’re looking for ball production, Adebo has that, too, as he has topped four interceptions and at least 10 pass deflections in each of his two seasons as a starter.

Weaknesses

Adebo did not see any playing time during his freshman year. Though he has been productive since, there are some flashes of his relative inexperience at times. His ball production is impressive, but there are times when he can be late to turning his head towards the ball and tracking it down on deep throws, thus impacting his ability to make a play on a more consistent basis.

He shows promise as a tackler, but his form could still use a little bit of work. His footwork in press-man coverage isn’t incredibly consistent yet, so considering he will likely spend a lot of his time in that role in the NFL, he should work on not wasting any steps at the line of scrimmage.

Bottom Line

Adebo is a length, physical and athletic cover man who has the physical tools that teams love at the outside cornerback position. His upside makes him one of the best prospects at his position in this draft class.

Projection: Round 1-2

Ohio State wrestling impresses again with domination of Stanford

The Ohio State Buckeyes wrestling team dominated the Stanford Cardinal in the team’s first dual matches of the season.

Ohio State wrestling opened its brand new Covelli Center with a dominant win over unranked Stanford.

The final score of the dual match, 29-6 in favor of the Buckeyes, doesn’t show how close this match actually was. Ohio State lost only one of the nine weight classes, when Ethan Smith (165 lbs) was pinned by Shane Griffith. Of Ohio State’s wins in the other nine eight classes, none came via Fall (a pin) and only two were Major Decisions (wins by 8-14 points). The other seven wins were all by less then eight points, including two matches that required Sudden Victory.

Sammy Sasso, who absolutely ran roughshod over all of his competition at the Michigan State Open, found himself in the first tight battle of his collegiate career. He fought his way to a tight 3-1 win against No. 19 Requir van der Merwe.

Luke Pletcher, the newly-minted No. 1 at 141 lbs, needed some incredible moments in Sudden Victory just to eke out the win.

I’m certainly not complaining about a blowout win. But if coach Tom Ryan wants to show his team that it still has a lot it can improve on, most of these matches showed some definite room to grow. And it was great to see wins from Quinn Kinner 133 lbs and Zach Steiner at 184 lbs.

Ohio Intercollegiate Open

Several Buckeyes also competed at the Ohio Intercollegiate Open this weekend, instead of in the dual against Stanford. There was no official team competition, so every Buckeye at the OIO was representing themselves.

Three Buckeyes won their Gold Division brackets, including an impressive performance from freshman Carson Kharchla at 165 lbs. The competition level at the OIO wasn’t near the level that Ohio State will see in Big Ten play, but it was good to see such a strong performance. Rocky Jordan won the bracket at 174 lbs, while Gavin Hoffman did the same at 184. It’s hard to read too much into Hoffman’s victory, as two of his four wins came via injuries to opponents (one before the match, one mid-match). Still, 184 lbs is definitely the current weak spot in Ohio State’s lineup, and it will be great if the Buckeyes can get some confidence and victories in that weight class as the season progresses.