For the first time in Cherry Hill East history, the Boy’s Golf Team won state championships at Raritan Valley Country Club on May 12 and won Sectional Championships at the South Sectional Championship at Charleston Springs Country Club the week before.
The school, which only has won a sectional golf championship in 1984, celebrated their recent wins with a parade on May 14.
“From a parent’s standpoint, the unity that this team had was really like nothing I’ve ever seen in the time that I’ve watched my kids play high school sports,” said Pam Rosenberg, mother of Sam Rosenberg. “They all really helped each other through the good matches, the bad matches, whenever anyone had a good day or a bad day, they all really help each other up.”
Cherry Hill East’s Golf Co-Captains Sam Rosenberg (left) and Brian Cotter (right) at the state championships on May 14.
This year’s team was led by senior co-captains Brian Cotter and Sam Rosenberg, who played in the state championships alongside juniors Ethan Barroway and Jesse Serata. They played against Ridge, Morristown and Freehold Township and scored 324, the lowest number of strokes, narrowly beating out Ridge by two strokes.
“The difference in this year’s team is depth,” said Coach Ryan James. “We have a lot of guys that can score well. That’s what it is.”
James noted that two of the four teams had played this course during their regular season and it puts players at a disadvantage to not know it. To level up, the Cherry Hill East Boys team received permission and decided to go as a group to analyze the team one day before, on Mother’s Day.
Although they usually practice at the Legacy Club at Woodcrest, which Cotter called “a super hard course” due to the number of trees and obstacles in the way, Rosenberg shared that he felt that the state championship course was much more difficult than the course at sectionals which they had played before.
“We knew that we had the ability to shoot very well there (at sectionals) but we definitely knew we could still get the job done,” Rosenberg said. “It was just a different type of course.”
The East golf coach also acknowledged the impact of Rosenberg and Cotter’s leadership.
“Brian Cotter and Sam Rosenberg were two captains that instilled values and structure and they definitely showed leadership quality,” said James. “Those two senior captains helped the younger guys really do well.”
Although golfing is done as an individual sport, Cotter and Rosenberg shared that they made an effort to play regularly with their members, both for practice and for fun and that throughout the years, they had become good friends.
“It’s really hard to have a really successful and progressive team when the leaders aren’t involved, and I feel like us two, we’ve both been very dedicated to the program over these past couple of years and I feel like the younger people on the team see that and they take it to heart,” said Rosenberg. “They see that they want to get better and they want to put in the time every day.”
“Being around them as much as possible, just playing golf with them, and just showing them how much it really does take to be successful.”
