With spring seasons coming to a close, the Binghamton University golf team finished in fourth place at the America Sky Championship on Wednesday while one of its own was named America Sky Player of the Year.

The Bearcats posted a score of 303 in the final round, finishing only behind the University of Northern Colorado (292), California State University, Sacramento (291) and Weber State University (287).

As a team, BU finished the three-day tournament in Arizona with a total score of 908, though senior Jake Katz, the recipient of the conference Player of the Year award, said he thought the team “expected to do a little bit better.”

“We were playing well enough to win for sure, but we just couldn’t make enough putts,” he said. “The first day was rough, the second day we played really [well] but not enough putts went in … and then [the third day] we were all playing pretty well through about nine or 10 holes and then just couldn’t hold it together.”

Head coach Bernie Herceg shared the sentiment.

“Did we accomplish our goal? No, because we were going in hoping to win,” he said. “We all felt as a team, and myself as a coach, that we were the best program there and we should have won.”

Multiple Bearcats turned in notable individual performances in the field of 59.

Junior Mike Surdey’s eighth-place finish led Binghamton while senior Katz and freshman Bryce Edmister finished 12th and 20th, respectively.

Edmister’s was his third top-20 finish of his rookie season while Surdey’s score of 76, 74, 73 led him to his second top-10 placing of the year.

This season, Binghamton golfers have placed in the top-10 nine times and have won two individual titles. But Katz’s accomplishment this year may be the most notable, and his America Sky Player of the Year honor is his second in as many seasons.

“It’s been a really good year and I’ve played really well all year,” he said. “Pretty happy to get the award. It’s Conference Player of the Year so it’s a pretty big award.”

“It was great to see Jake get that,” Herceg said. “To get that award [over] all of the players in the conference just shows how far Jake has come to be such a great athlete. As a D-I golfer he’s progressed to be just an outstanding player.”

For the Bearcats, the next challenge may be their most difficult: trying to replace the graduating Katz.

“To ever find another Jake Katz, I don’t know if we ever will. That’s just how good of a player he is,” Herceg said. “I keep telling some of the guys that it’s going to be tough to replace [him] and that [they] are going to have to bring their game to a different level.”