Player, Freshman, and Coaching Staff of the Year in 2025 all went to the Golden Eagles.
April 28th was a pretty great day for Marquette men’s golf, as the Golden Eagles wrapped up the three round Big East tournament with a team score of -17. That gave them the conference championship by an 11 stroke margin, earning the Golden Eagles their sixth Big East title and fifth in the last nine tournaments.
That’s great stuff for on the course, head-to-head competition. When it comes to general competition against their Big East brethren, May 6th was a pretty great day for Marquette, too. The Big East announced the 2025 postseason awards for men’s golf that day, and there’s a whole bunch of Marquette all over the press release.
Patrick Adler was named Big East Player of the Year by way of the NCAA Scoreboard Collegiate rankings, and the same process tabbed Vincent Cervantes as the Big East Freshman of the Year. The Big East coaches put their heads together and voted on Coaching Staff of the Year, and that vote went to Marquette head coach Steve Bailey and his assistants, Jordan Niebrugge and Josh Robinson.
ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, the same scoring system that played Adler out in front of the pack in the Big East this season also recognized that Max Lyons and Johan Widal were amongst the six best golfers in the Big East this season, as they earned All-Big East First Team honors alongside Adler. Cervantes’ season as the best freshman in the league was also good enough to earn him All-Big East Second Team honors.
Here’s what the league office wrote about Adler’s season:
Adler, a senior from Winnetka, Ill., compiled a 71.16 stroke average. He tied teammate Johan Widal for fourth place in the BIG EAST Championship. Adler is the top ranked league player in the Scoreboard rankings. He was the top Marquette performer in four of 10 regular season tournaments with two first-place finishes and a tie for third at the prestigious Boilermaker Invitational. Adler is the sixth Marquette golfer to win Player of the Year honors.
The Marquette press release went into great detail on what Adler did this season:
Adler, a senior from Winnetka, Illinois, burst onto the college golf scene this fall with a pair of medalist honors in the Windon Memorial Classic at Conway Farms on Sept. 29-30 and the RedHawk Intercollegiate on Oct. 14-15 at Pittsburgh Field Club.
His victory at Conway Farms buoyed his player of the year candidacy with a five-stroke win against a loaded tournament field with an 11-under 202. His score is tied for the third-best mark in MU program history for a 54-hole event and his 11-under is the sixth-best score-to-par for an MU player.
Adler finished the year at No. 138 in the Scoreboard NCAA Division I Men’s College Golf Rankings, the highest in the league and 14 spots above the next closest BIG EAST player, teammate Max Lyons, the 2023-24 BIG EAST Player of the Year. He earned three BIG EAST Male Golfer of the Week honors (Oct. 2, Oct. 16, April 22) during the year and is joined on the All-BIG EAST First Team by Lyons and MU junior Johan Widal.
The Loyola Academy graduate has been on a rapid ascent since filling in as a substitute in the final round of the 2024 BIG EAST tournament at Riverton Pointe Golf Club in Hardeeville, South Carolina. Adler led MU with a 1-under 71 in his first league tournament action and went on to win the 122nd South of Ireland Amateur Open at historic Lahinch in County Clare over the summer. That launched a senior campaign that has included four top five and seven top 20 finishes, and the team lead in five events with a 71.16 scoring average, an average of -0.10 strokes-to par-per round.
And here’s the Big East write up on Cervantes:
Cervantes, a freshman from Chandler, Ariz., is also a member of the All-BIG EAST Second Team in addition to his freshman honors. He tied for 13th at the BIG EAST Championship and won the Irish Creek Collegiate in Kannapolis, N.C., which included a round of 64. He owns a 73.00 stroke average.
And the MU additions:
Cervantes, the league freshman of the year, is a member of the All-BIG EAST Second Team. He won the Irish Creek Collegiate (April 7-8) to become the first MU freshman golfer to earn medalist honors since [Hunter] Eichhorn won the 2018 BIG EAST Individual Championship. His 6-under 64 in the second and final round of the event stands as a single round low for an MU golfer this season.
The Big East has space to work with so, they did write up something on both Lyons and Widal for the First Team Honors:
Marquette’s Max Lyons is an All-BIG EAST First Team pick. He was the BIG EAST Player of the Year last year. In 2024-25, Lyons tied for fourth place in the BIG EAST Championship. The senior finished the regular season with four straight top-10 finishes. He has a 70.71 stroke average. Marquette’s Johan Widal joins Adler and Lyons on the first team. In addition to his tie for fourth place with Adler at the BIG EAST Championship, the junior finished in the top 15 in five of the 10 regular season events. He compiled a 71.48 stroke average for the season.
And here’s what Marquette added to the conversation:
Lyons, a fellow senior, ranks No. 152 according to Scoreboard and is the MU leader this season with a 70.71 stroke scoring average, which is -0.55 strokes to par per round. That scoring average is tied for the second-best single season mark in program history and the score versus par is fourth best. He has recorded scores under par in all six tournaments he’s played this spring and in 13 of 16 rounds.
The native of Phoenix, Arizona is third all-time at MU in career scoring average (72.05), score to par (0.60) and par-or-better rounds (64). Lyons has recorded four top five finishes this season and led MU with 11 rounds in the 60s and 19 par-or-better rounds. He has a team-best 461 par-or better holes (106 birdies) this season and a team-best second round scoring average of 69.82 strokes.
Prior to this season, only three players in Marquette history had ever recorded a season-long scoring average under par (Mike Van Sickle, Hunter Eichhorn and Oliver Farrell) and both Adler and Lyons have done so through 31 rounds.
Widal, a junior in his first year of NCAA Division I, leads MU with seven eagles as does his .935 (29-of-31) counting scores percentage. The native of Halmstad, Sweden earned BIG EAST Male Golfer of the Week on Feb. 6 after helping the Golden Eagles to a victory in BIG EAST Match Play at Bear Lakes Country Club while never reaching the 16th hole in any of his three matchups.
Widal led the Golden Eagles at five events during the year and tied for the team lead with Adler at the BIG EAST Championships in a tie for fourth overall. He has recorded 17 rounds of par-or-better in his first taste of NCAA Division I and owns four top 10 finishes, including three this spring. His 449 holes of par-or-better is second only to Lyons and he has a team-best seven eagles.
Marquette is not done playing golf yet this school year. The Golden Eagles will make the team’s sixth NCAA Regional appearance next week from May 12 through May 14th. They have been placed in the Urbana Regional as the #8 seed, and will play three rounds at Atkins Golf Course in Urbana, Illinois, with an eye on finishing top five and advancing to the NCAA Championships round.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle