The Binghamton golf team concluded its fall campaign this weekend, securing a fifth-place finish at the Lehigh Invitational with a score of 609/33 over par. Highlighting Binghamton’s performance was junior Brandon Conner who shot 141/-3 under par to win the 45-competitor event.

“It was great,” said Binghamton head coach Bernie Herceg. “The competition was good, this was a very good course, but also playing was very difficult. It was awesome to have [Conner] win the event and have a tremendous first round, but really to back it up with a solid second round.”

Conner led the pack on day one, shooting 67/5 under par, tying his career-best round while building a three-score lead over the next highest-performing golfer. Attempting to fend off his competitors in the second round of the event, Conner continued his historic performance, snagging three birdies in holes four, six and 13, en route to a 74/2 over par finish for round two. When the competition wrapped up, Conner had maintained his first-place position with a final score of 141/3 under par, bringing home medalist honors to BU for the first time since 2019. Conner’s final score of three under par is tied for the sixth-lowest score through 36 holes relative to par in BU history, a record that Conner himself set at Binghamton’s 2023 home invitational with a score of seven under par.

“It feels incredible,” Conner said. “Sleeping on a big lead is never easy, but I just tried to not think ahead too much and take it one shot at a time trying to play the best golf I could for the team.”

Rounding out the top-20 performances for BU was senior Ryan Millevoi, who began his campaign at the Lehigh Invitational in the middle of the pack in the first round, shooting six bogeys and one double, en route to a 78/6 over-par performance, as he finished day one tied for 24th place. Looking to climb up in the rankings, Millevoi delivered an improved round two performance, securing three birdies within the first 13 holes, two double bogeys and three straight bogeys in the final three holes, which bogged down his first-round performance. However, he was still able to improve his ranking, climbing to a 16th-place tie with a final score of 154/10 over par.

“We actually played pretty good [at the Lehigh Invitational],” Herceg said. “[Conner] was carrying the team, but if you look at it, we were only four shots out of second place so overall it really wasn’t a bad team finish either.”

Elsewhere in the final rankings, juniors Harrison Blech and Sean Shen finished 31st and tied for 23rd, respectively. Blech shot 81/9 over par on Saturday, going into Sunday tied for 33rd in the competition, but an improved performance of 77/5 over par on day two moved him into 31st place, with a final score of 158/14 over par. Shen found greater success in his day one performance, shooting 79/7 over par, and his Sunday performance of 77/5 over par worked to a finish in 23rd place with a final score of 156/12 over par. Rounding it out for BU was senior Tynan Jones who shot 165/21 over par, finishing in a 37th-place tie.

“We finish on a stronger note,” Herceg said. “In the beginning of the fall season, I don’t think we played to our potential. Everybody had the opportunity to get in the lineup and play. In some tournaments, a couple of guys would play well and others didn’t, so we just need to get a little bit more consistent.”

The Bearcats wrap up their 2024 fall campaign, highlighted by a second-place tournament finish and their first medalist’s honor since 2019. The spring portion of Binghamton’s schedule will be announced at a later date.