Over the weekend, the Binghamton golf team opened its season at the Alex Lagowitz Memorial tournament in Hamilton, New York. After three days of play, the Bearcats finished 13th out of 14 competing teams, with zero golfers finishing in the top half of the competition.

“In respect to how we played and finished, [it] definitely was a little discouraging, but first tournament of the year,” said Binghamton head coach Bernie Herceg. “As we’re trying to figure things out, where people fit and we had some freshmen in the lineup, so it was great for them to just get some experience and see how they perform.”

The Bearcats’ performance was highlighted by freshman Harrison Blech. In his first competition as a Bearcat, Blech finished tied for 55th with 227 strokes. On day one, the freshman shot six over par before bouncing back during round two with a one over par 73. Blech rounded out his performance with a 76 to finish 11 over for the tournament.

“[Blech] played great in our qualifying rounds and he was actually a person who qualified,” Herceg said. “Now when it comes to the tournament, had some solid rounds. He’s also a competitor, a little bit disappointed, he knows he could have played a little bit stronger and scored a little bit better, but all-in-all he played great for his first event. In [Sunday’s] round, he didn’t have the best start, but finished really on a high note and feels good about going into the rest of the season.”

Not far behind Blech was senior Evan Sitts. Sitts was just one stroke behind Blech with a combined score of 228 — good enough to tie for 59th. The senior bookended his performance with a pair of 77s and a two-over round on day two. Sitts is BU’s team captain this year and is coming off a 13th-place finish at last season’s Big Sky Tournament. The captain was also coming off some health issues, but powered through to play in the event.

“[Sitts’] back really flared up, hats off to him because he fought through a lot of pain on Saturday,” Herceg said. “It’s great to see his work ethic, and it really rubbed off on the rest of the team. I’m looking forward to this whole year with having him as our captain and the leadership he provides and the talent that he brings to the table.”

Rounding out Binghamton’s performance were sophomores Shawn Colella and Ryan Millevoi, who shot 18 over and 15 over, respectively. Freshman Sean Shen was in between them with a 16-over tournament. Colella tied with Blech for the best round for BU as he shot a 73 on day two.

Shen and Blech are two of three freshmen on the team this season. The Bearcats graduated four players after last season.

“It’s kind of a fresh start, almost a fresh team here,” Herceg said. “So far the camaraderie as a team has been great. We are a younger team so we’re gonna grow together and this season we have some nice tournaments set up in the fall forum. A couple new ones we haven’t played in a while. Also, we have our home tournament coming up, so it’s really exciting and some of the players are definitely going to be able to compete at one point or the other.”

Binghamton shot combined scores of 310, 295 and 306 on the three days, respectively, as they sat in 13th after each round of the tournament. BU’s total of 911 strokes was 11 ahead of last place and 22 behind St. Bonaventure.

The Bearcats will play next at the Temple/Cornell Fall Invitational from Saturday, Sept. 17 to Sunday, Sept. 18. Tee times are scheduled to start at 9 a.m. at The 1912 Club in Plymouth Meeting, PA.