The Hillsdale men’s golf team threatened program records Monday and Tuesday, starting the season with a second place finish at the Malone-Glenmoor Invitational in Canton, Ohio.

“It’s definitely nice to get off to a good start this year, but we can’t get complacent,” Thompson said. “We have to keep staying focused on what we’re doing.”

The team finished with a score of 282-282-296 for a three-round total of 860, just two strokes off the best 54-hole score since the program was restarted in 2013. Two standout seniors, Darragh Monaghan and Gerry Jones, Jr., led the team with career best performances.

“It’s a massive confidence boost,” Monaghan said. “Last year, we didn’t get off to a hot start. Hopefully, this gives us a better step forward.”

Monaghan shot a 69-68-71-208 in his best performance as a collegiate golfer. His score was just one stroke short of Hillsdale’s modern individual record, a 207 shot by Joel Pietila in 2017. Monaghan missed three months of competition last season after receiving surgery on his shoulder in December. Thompson said it was good to see him healthy and competing again.

“He’s played well for us,” Thompson said. “For him to get off to a good start to the year, be healthy, and to see him play like that was really cool. I’m happy for him. He’s had the talent all along.”

One stroke behind Monaghan was Gerry Jones, Jr., who shot under par for all three rounds, including a personal best of 67 in a total score of 67-71-71-209.

“​​I was really satisfied,” Jones said. “There are a lot of minor things in my game that I put a lot of emphasis on this summer that I was hoping would translate into shaving some strokes off the course and that’s exactly what happened.”

Jones attributed this successful start to the players’ work during the summer.

“It validated all the work that we put into our games individually this summer,” Jones said. “Coming together for the first tournament and being able to be right there in contention – and even be in the lead at one point – I think that’s good for our confidence.”

Maxwell Burns, the only true freshman on the team, shot a 69 in the second round. Burns said the performances of both seniors reminded him of the importance of consistency.

“They will show up when you need them,” Burns said. “I was able to help the team out, but I need to get the point when I can do that every single time, instead of every now and then. The main takeaway is that I need to become more consistent.”

Jones said the strong start early in the season sets the team up to remain competitive throughout the year.

“It’ll put us in a much much better position,” said Jones. “We don’t have to be under so much pressure on a week to week basis, basically trying to survive to get to regionals. This is an extremely good start.”

Multiple players said they still think the ceiling is higher than the standard they set with their performance this week.

“We can probably average four or five shots better apiece,” Burns said. “This tournament was good, but I don’t think we really showed our full potential.”

The team heads to Findlay, Ohio next week for the Doc Spragg Invitational Sept. 19-20. Jones, Jr. said the team is looking ahead to what they can do better, not how they performed this week.

“We’ve just got to not worry about what we did in Canton,” Jones said. “At the end of the day, when we’re at Findlay, nobody really cares what we did last week.”

Thompson said while the team did some things well, they must remain focused on the long season ahead.

“It’s a good start to the year,” said Thompson. “But we have a lot of golf left.”