theclubhouse Four Schools Battle at 2023 Collegiate National Championships

The 2023 USCA Collegiate National Championships, held over the April 22-23 weekend at the Merion Cricket Club in Haverford, Penn., featured two days of temperatures in the upper 70s and partly cloudy skies. The rain held off on Saturday until play was over for the 38 players participating in the championship representing four different colleges.

The golf croquet tournament remained the most popular segment, featuring 15 doubles teams, but this year also saw the return of an American Six Wicket rules tournament with four doubles teams. Saturday was a full round-robin for the American Six Wicket players, who would all make it to Sunday. The GC players had six, hour-long games with 10 players able to advance to the next day. At what must have been a strange hour for many of the college students, there were two play-in games for the GC tournament at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. The seventh seed faced the 10 seed and the eighth seed faced the nine seed. After that, it was a strict single-elimination quarterfinal. Oklahoma Wesleyan University continued its recent dominance in golf croquet game, sending three of its teams to the semifinals with one team from the United States Naval Academy completing the final four.

Future naval officers Johnny Colbert and Carson Knight put up a brave front, keeping up with Alix Worley and Vanesa Fernandez from OKWU all the way to a 4-4 tie at the eighth hoop, but it was then that they saw their chances slip slowly away. Worley/Fernandez sent their ships a-sailing with the next three hoops to set up an all-OKWU final after lunch.

In this final, it's worth noting that both Worley and opponent Stanley Fisher wore USA jackets, having recently represented the U.S. in the WCF Under-21 World Golf Championships in New Zealand. Another tight game saw Fisher and partner Leina Casimir take home the hardware and OKWU the team trophy.

In the American Six Wicket event, there were three teams from St. John’s College and one from the Naval Academy, setting up a rematch of the Annapolis Cup from the previous week, won by the Johnnies 3 games to 2. The Academy got its revenge as Gio Macaluso and Quentin Zimmer beat Caden Marshall and Joe Bennet 15-13 in the finals, featuring a last-turn 30-yard hit-in on the line from Zimmer.

At the trophy ceremony, both Tom Balding and Michael Albert spoke to the students about what croquet can look like after college and how the USCA can help them continue to play.

Thanks as always to the Merion Cricket Club and its excellent Athletic Director, Whitney Thain, for continuing to host such a special event for our colleges!

—Justin Berbig and Micah Beck, Tournament Directors