ATLANTA, Ga. – Junior All-American Brandon Pierce closed out a 2-and-1 victory over USC standout Andrew Levitt late in the match, but the defending national champion LSU Tigers fell to the Trojans by a 4-1 margin during Tuesday’s consolation match at the inaugural East Lake Cup held this week at historic East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
The Trojans turned the tables on the Tigers as they took third place in the event by a 4-1 margin after LSU won last year’s national championship by an identical scoreline over USC in the NCAA Championship Match last June. The Tigers also dropped a 3.5-1.5 decision to Georgia in the semifinal round that resumed Tuesday morning after play was suspended on Monday.
Pierce put the Tigers on the scoreboard in the afternoon’s consolation match with a narrow win over Levitt as he bounced back from a 7-and-5 defeat to Georgia’s Jaime Lopez Rivarola earlier in the day.
After teeing off from the back nine to start the match, Pierce made a birdie on the par-five 10th hole to take a 1-up lead and never looked back as he extended his lead to as much as 4-up through eight holes with par at the par-four 14th, 16th and 17th holes on the back nine. Levitt cut into Pierce’s advantage with back-to-back birdies at the par-five fifth and par-three sixth holes, but the Tiger standout closed out his 2-and-1 victory after play was stopped when the Trojans scored the deciding point in their 4-1 win.
LSU’s freshman Sam Burns opened his day by putting the Tigers on the scoreboard against Georgia in their semifinal match with a 4-and-3 win against Sepp Straka, but fell 3-and-2 to Trojan All-American Sean Crocker in the consolation match after playing all square for four holes. Crocker took control on the back nine with a birdie at the par-four 14th and a par at the par-five 15th to go 2-up on the day.
While facing a two-hole deficit at the turn, Burns cut Crocker’s lead to one with a par at the par-four third, but that was as close as he would get as Crocker moved to 3-up with birdies at holes No. 6 and No. 7.
Fellow freshman Nathan Jeansonne also found the scoresheet in his semifinal match as he halved his match with Georgia’s Greyson Sigg through 17 holes after the Bulldogs sealed the team win. Jeansonne finished up his appearance at the East Lake Cup with a 5-and-3 defeat to USC’s Justin Suh, while senior Zach Wright fell to Rico Hoey and junior Eric Ricard fell to Jonah Texeira by identical 3-and-2 scorelines.
Their fourth-place finish in the inaugural East Lake Cup wrapped up the 2015 fall season for the Tigers as they finished with one tournament victory at the David Toms Intercollegiate on Oct. 11 along with appearances at the Carpet Capital Collegiate Classic (Sept. 11-13), Golfweek Conference Challenge (Sept. 25-27) and United States Collegiate Championship (Oct. 16-18). They will now break for the winter before returning to action in 2016 with a return trip to The Prestige at PGA West being held Feb. 15-17 at PGA West’s Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course.