Go Big Red: Fall 2025

An unlikely hole-in-one may have created good vibes for a record-setting performance by boys’ golf.

Maybe things were just supposed to work this way for the boys’ golf team this past spring. The team, coached by Etienne Bilodeau H’01 ’20 ’21, was already feeling good after capturing the Mercer County Tournament and the N.J.I.S.A.A. championships in 2024, and the team was off to another strong start to the 2025 campaign. Still, any experienced golfer will tell you that a little bit of good fortune goes a long way.

And so it went when Ethan Lee ’27, who wasn’t originally scheduled to compete for the Big Red varsity on March 31, stepped in for a teammate who was unavailable for the match at Golden Pheasant Golf Club in Lumberton, N.J. What happened was what Lee calls his “greatest sports moment ever.”

Lee hit a pitching wedge from 137 yards on the par-3 second hole. The ball sailed through a strong left-to-right wind, landed three feet from the pin, and spun toward the hole.

“While I knew it was close, the ball appeared to have stopped right on the edge of the hole, so I picked up my tee and was content to have a good look at a birdie.”

But Lee’s tee shot wasn’t just close. It was in the cup.

“My teammates and players from other schools that I was playing with all got excited and ran towards the hole to check,” Lee said of the ace, believed to be the first by a Lawrenceville golfer since 1977. “I was so excited and thrilled.”

For the team, the good vibes from the hole-in-one carried through the spring just like Lee’s shot off the tee. On senior day, at which captain Quinn Mulhearn ’25 and Harrison Emery ’25 were honored, seven golfers headed to Mountain View Golf Course in nearby Ewing, Big Red’s home course, to compete in the second leg of the coveted Leibovit Cup. The cup is named for Jeffrey Leibovit ’73, who won four New Jersey prep state championships for Lawrenceville and led the squad as its captain for two seasons. An attorney, Leibovit died of cancer in 1991 when he was just 36.

Lawrenceville and Peddie School compete annually for the Leibovit Cup in an 18-hole home-and-away (nine holes at each school’s home course) stroke-play contest in which the best five scores of the seven competitors from each team are counted. Big Red headed into the May 8 final with a narrow 196-199 lead from their previous match three weeks prior. This time, the margin was not so close.

Mulhearn exploded in the final, carding a 5-under par 37, in leading Lawrenceville to a 183-205 win over Peddie. The 183 strokes represent Big Red’s lowest all-time score at Mountain View, and 16 strokes better than their previous best this spring.

Emery, the other outgoing senior, also reached a personal best in the final. According to Bilodeau, Emery had never broken 40 in a 9-hole match but shot a 39 against Peddie while paired with Mulhearn.

“In many ways, this season has been truly magical given the fact that we had graduated five out of eight seniors,” Bilodeau said. “We also have had a number of different golfers step up when needed this year. From a statistical perspective, I don’t recall seeing such a narrow difference in stroke-play averages for the season between our No. 1 and eighth golfer.”

Lawrenceville followed its win in the Leibovit Cup, which raised its record to 17-2, with a successful defense of its N.J.I.S.A.A. title the following week. They also retained the Crooked Stick after topping The Hill School.

“It’s been fun to watch them play!” Bilodeau said. “I am extremely proud of the boys and all of the time that they have invested in elevating their game and representing Lawrenceville this season.”

The founders of the Karate Club returned to campus to recall its humble origins and celebrate its 50^th year.

It all began with synchronicity, according to Tom Meseroll ’77. He and classmates Marty Picco ’77 and Rick Purcell ’77 were already studying Shotokan with Sensei Katsuya Kisaka in Trenton, and along with Bill Manieri ’77, they wanted to bring karate to Lawrenceville.

At the same time, Cameron Hunt, a first-degree black belt from the Shin Karate Institute in Trenton, reached out to the School to offer his services in the punching- and kicking-based martial art that developed in what is now Okinawa, Japan. Meseroll recalls the administration being reluctant to embrace an “outsider coming in and teaching” — especially for physical education credits — but still, the possibility was posed to him and his friends.

“It got down to us, and we were like, what?” he recalls. “That’s exactly what we want.”

With English teacher John Magee H’73 ’75 serving as their official adviser, the Karate Club was up and running.

This past spring, Meseroll, Picco, and Purcell joined a half-century’s worth of like-minded Lawrentians to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Karate Club with a demonstration and reception inside the Tsai Field House multipurpose room. That’s where today’s iteration trains under Spanish teacher and coach Elizabeth “Eli” Montes P’28. The club is a registered studio in the World Tang Soo Do Association, and students test for official belt ranks at the end of each trimester. It is open to all students, regardless of experience, who develop strength, coordination, and mental and physical endurance as they learn forms from Okinawa, different hand and kick techniques, as well as self-defense.

Meseroll recalls the club’s humble origins, which saw him and his peers train on rough cement in a steaming-hot basement next to a boiler room with pipes running through from ceiling to floor.

“It was like a prison,” he says. But the group of eight students also wrote a set of bylaws that still serve as a constitution for the club today. That “core four” lost track of the club as they went off into the world, and it wasn’t until their ten-year reunion that they learned that their honorary classmate, teacher Joel Greenberg H’77 ’13 P’93, had taken over as club adviser.

The enduring appeal of the Karate Club is grounded in the self-discipline, humility, and mutual respect associated with the martial arts. But the student founders don’t pretend they weren’t also moved by the cultural influences of the mid-1970s.

“I think one of the great inspirations of the whole thing was Enter the Dragon,” Picco says, referencing the iconic 1973 feature film starring martial arts expert Bruce Lee.

“Oh, yeah!” Purcell exclaims.

However, their interest transcended a cultural moment or a fad, and they’re proud of what they began at Lawrenceville, the lessons that began with their original, handwritten charter — an artifact present at the 50th anniversary celebration.

“It’s just amazing,” Meseroll says. “and just the difference it’s made on so many people’s lives now.”

• Boys’ lacrosse earned its third-consecutive national prep championship with a 12-4 win over Salisbury and finished the season ranked No. 4 nationally among all high schools by InsideLacrosse.com. Nick Voultos ’25, Brock Getson ’25, and Sawyer English ’25 were selected to the New Balance All-America Senior Game.
• Girls’ lacrosse captured the Mid-Atlantic Prep League title and won the Wooden Stick. Lexie Koch ’25 was chosen to the New Balance All-America Senior Game, and she and Dani Caldwell ’27 were named to the N.J.I.S.A.A. All-Prep A team.
• Boys’ and girls’ track and field won their respective N.J.I.S.A.A. championships on May 2. The girls added a Mid-Atlantic Prep League title a week later, adding a slew of School records along the way: Jael Gaines ’26, Sofia Swindell ’25, Yasmin Willie ’28, and Rhianna Scott ’25 in the 4x400m; Swindell ran the 100m in 11.88, good for No. 2 in the state; Jesslyn Bentum ’25 hurled the discus 117-7 at the N.J.I.S.A.A. Relays; Scott ran the 400m in 56.08; and Blair Bartlett ’27 won the girls’ 3000m at the Penn Relays.
• Boys’ and girls’ crew both won the Brown Cup in the spring.
• Big Red’s overall record in the spring was 131-52, winning 72 percent of its games, matches, and meets.