BOYS GOLF: Berries repeat as Rochester Invitational champs

The Logansport boys golf team started the season strong for a second straight year with a win at the Rochester Invitational at Round Barn Golf Club on Saturday.

The Berries won with a 321, bettering their winning score of a year ago by seven strokes.

Graham Taylor and Louis Rozzi each shot 79 to lead the Berries and tie for fourth among all individuals. Eli Baldwin had an 81, Evan Brandstatter 82 and Logan Lange 90.

The Berries are hoping the win portends good things to come as they are also the defending Logansport Sectional champions.

“We have all five boys back that won sectional last year, so how exciting for the program,” Logansport coach Abby Lundy said. “The first tournament of the year is always cold and frost. So we were delayed an hour. So you get up there, you wait and I was a little nervous about how they would play just because you wait, you’re nervous already, it’s your first invite. And they came out and played really well. We played with three good teams. The field was great, 18 teams.

“When they got done, they were saying, ‘oh, I didn’t play that great.’ And I’m like, ‘yeah you did for the first invite. That was awesome. You played better than you did last year and we won.’ And as we were doing the scoring and getting that completed, we were able to pull out the win and four out of the five placed in the top 10 as well individually. So that was exciting.”

The Berries have a group that plays a lot of golf.

“I have some one-sport athletes,” Lundy said. “Graham and Evan really put in work in the offseason, simulators, I know Graham played all winter. He played in a couple tournaments down in Florida to get ready for the season. Eli has a simulator as well with Dykeman having the two new simulators up there. We were able to get a lot of work in this winter. So even my multi-sport athletes were able to get some work in this winter.”

Pioneer also had a good showing, shooting a 346 to place fifth.

Ivan Reyes was the second overall medalist with a 1-over 73 to lead the Panthers. He was followed by Micah Rans (85), Dane Bowditch (89), Brady Price (99) and Noah Van Meter (99).

Lewis Cass shot a 348 to place seventh. Michael Myers shot a 79 to finish tied for fourth overall. He was followed by Brody Hillis (86), Cole Rush (89), Harrison Clark (94) and Liam Ellington (96).