ECHO – The Grant Union golf team battled the weather as well as its opponents last weekend.

The Prospectors finished in eighth place with a four man total of 430 at a rainy and windy Echo Hills invitational Friday. There were 10 schools and more than 60 golfers competing at the invitational.

Enterprise finished the invitational in first place with a score of 337. Echo earned second place with a total of 349 and the host team, Heppner, was third with 349.

Individually, the Prospectors kept close to one another. Randy Dowdy led Grant Union with a score of 103, Matt Goin hit a 104, Clayton Welchell scored 108, Preston Ake had a 115, and Lincoln Mosier had 135 strokes. Echo’s Tyler Hawkins had the lowest score of the tournament with a 79.

The invitational was the first golf competition for Goin, Mosier and Welchell.

“The kids did good,” Grant Union coach Ron Lundbom said. “They did better than I expected for the first competition of the year.”

Grant Union now prepares to host the Grant Union Invitational at the John Day Golf Club at 11 a.m. this Friday. The invitational is their only home competition of the year. The Prospectors will travel to Heppner to participate in the Willow Creek Invitational on Thursday.

“We’re looking forward to our tournament,” Lundbom said. “All of our kids get to golf there, and I’m taking a lot of them to Heppner. It’s going to be a busy week. It’s a big week for us.”