HARRISBURG, PA - No warm-up? No problem.

As the men’s golf team sat stuck in traffic Monday afternoon, 10 other teams were busy making final preparations before kicking off the fall golf season in Penn State Harrisburg’s annual Fall Invitational. PBU, on the other hand, was helplessly amongst turnpike traffic, shutdown for what ended up being a major accident just ahead.

Thankfully, the Crimson Eagles made it to Dauphin Highlands Golf Course before match play began, albeit by a full 10 minutes. So with a brisk five minute warm-up on the putting green, PBU was off and into the new season full swing.

Maybe they should shorten their warm-ups more often.

The Crimson Eagles fired a school record 320 on the par 72, 7,035 yard course, breaking the program’s old mark of 323 the group set in September of last year. Monday’s event also marks another monumental first for the PBU golf program: for the first time ever three golfers scored 80 or less in the same round.

In fact, junior Jared Wilcox, sophomore Corey Snyder, and senior Nate King all rounded the course in 77 strokes, tying the trio for second place overall amongst the field of 56 golfers.

“We are really excited about what we did yesterday. We had three great performances by Jared, Corey, Nate, tying for second in a deep field,” head coach Brett Nelson stated. “We were one low 80’s score from winning the tournament, and we have several guys who are more than capable of doing that in the future.”

Rookies Sam Wilcox and Garry North each recorded an 89 in their first collegiate golf match to round out the top five. Junior Dave Hill - who played as PBU’s sixth golfer - finished with a very impressive 83.

Hill, King, and Snyder all set new personal bests in the kick-off tournament.

York College finished with the top score, shooting a tournament record 313. The Spartans beat out Messiah and PBU who tied for second overall with a 320. Matt Lukehart of Stevenson University medaled by blowing past the rest of the field with an even-par 72.

“We beat a lot of teams today that we’ve lost to repeatedly in the past,” continued Nelson. “We competed with and even beat some of the better teams in the region so we are very encouraged by that and look forward to what we can accomplish the rest of the year.”

The golf team will have almost a three week break before their next match, returning to action on September 25 to go up against Penn State Berks at Foxchase Golf Club. Match time is scheduled for noon.