After a hole-in-one from senior Darragh Monaghan and freshman Max Burns’ personal best four-under 68, the Hillsdale men’s golf team tied for ninth place with two other teams at the Findlay Spring Invite this week.

“In one day, we saw the ceiling for this team and what we’re capable of,” Thompson said. “Then we saw the other side of what happens when we lose focus. When we’re focused and confident and determined, we can play really, really well and compete against anybody.”

Monaghan shot a hole-in-one on the eighth hole of his first round. Unlike most tournaments, the five players all played on the same hole at the same time, instead of being scattered around the 18 holes.

Thompson said it was Monaghan’s first hole-in-one of his life.

“We were all together on the tee box,” Thompson said. “We were all watching it in the air thinking that it looked pretty good. It landed about a foot short of the hole and just took one hop and disappeared. We all started to cheer and went a little crazy.”

Burns carded his best 18 holes of collegiate golf in the final round of the tournament. He said a stoic attitude helped him control his emotions and stay focused on his next shot.

“My mentality going into that last round was just ‘if something goes wrong, don’t try to blame anything. Just accept it, deal with it, and just stay in the moment,’” Burns said. “That’s what I did the entire time. It worked out pretty well.”

Most of the Chargers in the lineup carded their worst score in the second round, with as much as a 12-point swing between their best and worst rounds. Sophomore Filippo Reale shot a 69 in his first round, but cold and windy conditions helped bring his second-round score to a 78.

Reale said the score wasn’t entirely due to the conditions.

“I think we made the course harder than it was on that second round,” Reale said. “I think if you looked at the conditions, our second rounds were probably going to be worse, but they didn’t have to be that much worse.”

The team was ranked 14th in the Midwest region heading into the tournament in Lexington, Kentucky, Monday and Tuesday. Head coach Matt Thompson said the team is likely to stay in the same spot this week.

“We’re looking to just leave it all out there and try to get a win in the next couple of weeks,” Thompson said. “If that doesn’t happen, then we’ll focus our attention on the G-MAC conference championships.”