Throughout the two-day tournament, the Bearcats were consistently plagued by bogeys and double bogeys, collectively scoring a bogey or worse on 77 holes over three rounds. In contrast, the Bearcats posted only 41 birdies and no eagles.
“We definitely didn’t reach our objective,” said BU head coach Bernie Herceg. “We wanted to move up three or four spots on the leaderboard and it was doable, but we didn’t score well.”
Individually, the Bearcats’ best performer was freshman Justin Lane, who tied for 13th in a field of 75 total contestants. Lane put forth a consistent performance throughout, finishing each round at one over par for a total score of +3. Freshman Nacho Glagovsky turned in the second-best performance for the team, accumulating a tally of nine over par that included a final round of one under.
“[Lane] played real solid all week,” Herceg said. “He was the most consistent and best-finishing. And Nacho really had a strong day today, birdieing two out of his last three holes to finish under par … it isn’t anything shocking to me, they’re very talented players.”
The tournament started early Monday morning, and Binghamton’s struggles began almost immediately. Three of the five Bearcat competitors bogeyed their respective first holes, setting the tone for what would be a lackluster round for the team. BU seemed to be unable to find any rhythm, as there were very few long stretches of bogey-free play. Still, the Bearcats ended the round in sixth place, right in the middle of the leaderboard.
It was in the second round on Monday afternoon that the Bearcats’ struggles really intensified. Consecutive pars and birdies continued to elude most of the players. Meanwhile, the bogeys continued to pile up, including a quintuple bogey by sophomore Tom Mandel on the first hole. Their second-round performance was tied for the worst, and by the time it was over, the Bearcats found themselves firmly entrenched near the bottom of the leaderboard, something that a decent third round on Tuesday couldn’t remedy.
Ultimately, Binghamton finished 27 shots behind the eventual winners, Missouri State and UT Martin, who both turned in scores of nine over par. Individually, it was sophomore Austin Knight of Murray State who took first place with a score of six under, after a close battle with junior Ryan Knop of Auburn and senior Hunter Richardson of UT Martin.
This was the final tournament of the fall season for BU, and despite ending on a negative note, Herceg still took an optimistic take on the season overall.
“We’re a better team than a lot of the scores that we’ve had throughout the year,” Herceg said. “We had a really good home event. The final round that we had at that home tournament, that’s the capability we have … in every tournament that we played in, let alone if we played good or bad, we took a lot from it and gained a lot of experience.”
Following this invitational, the Bearcats embark on a five-month offseason through the winter. Their next invitational is scheduled for Friday, March 9, when the team heads to Boulder City, Nevada for the Jackrabbit Invitational.