Matt Fitzgerald at the tee.

The Highlanders had a tough start to the Farms Collegiate Invitational this past week. The slow start and subpar finish ultimately resulted in an 11th-place finish out of 12 teams for the UC Riverside men’s golf team.

The Highlanders started their third event of the season in negative fashion with a score of 320 in the first round, which turned out to be the second-lowest score of the invitational. UCR fared only a little better in the following round with a score 319 to finish the first day with a two-round total of 639. That score was good enough for 11th place.

The Highlanders’ performances remained about the same on the third round as they managed to score a 318 on the second day of competition. Although that result was Riverside’s best of the tournament, it proved to be the worst of that single round out of any team. UCR still finished in 11th place when it was all said and done with a grand total of 957. The Highlanders were 93 strokes over par.

UCR’s Bradley Fox played as an individual in this invitational and ended up with UCR’s best single-player score of 234. He shot a personal best of 75 in the third and final round to move from 46th to a tie for 39th place at the end of the invitational. BJ Doucett of UC Riverside shot a 238 and tied for 46th place.

The winning school of the invitational was the University of the Pacific with an impressive score of 872. The best individual performance came from Missouri’s Emilio Cuartero with a score of 215.

The Highlanders’ next event will take place on Feb. 25 at the North Ranch Collegiate Invitational in Westlake Village, Calif.