After finishing second in the state a year ago, Homestead entered this year’s boys golf state finals with aspirations of improving upon that finish and becoming the first northeast Indiana school since 2005 to win the team championship.

While not impossible, the task did become tougher for the Spartans after an opening-round 311 Tuesday in the 89th Annual IHSAA Boys Golf State Finals at Prairie View in Carmel.

That score puts Homestead in eighth place, 20 strokes behind Center Grove, who finished the first round with a three-over-par 291. The Trojans will enter today in first place by four shots over Westfield (295), with Castle (297), Guerin Catholic (301) and Noblesville (302) rounding out the top five.

“Looking at how everything was, with where we felt we were going into this morning, we didn’t play up to our expectations for sure today,” Homestead coach Mickey Mazock said. “We’re a little disappointed, but I have such a resilient group of kids with me. They understand that this is the last time they’re going to be all together as a team tonight and tomorrow. We’re trying to concentrate on making good memories down here, but the golf, score-wise, is not where we wanted to be, obviously.”

Caden Baker led the Spartans with a round of 73, while Holden Orofino shot a 75 and Landon Snyder finished with a 78.

“Caden’s a great player,” Mazock said. “It was nice to see him go out there and post a decent number and put himself somewhat in contention for an individual title. He has some work to do, but he has the skills for it.”

Center Grove sophomore Drew Carlson joined Westfield senior Hudson Kutchma and Castle freshman Alexander Cook atop the individual leaderboard after matching rounds of 68. Bloomington South senior Colton Watson finished the day alone in fourth place after shooting 71, with a pair of seniors, including Leo’s Caden Matthias, tied for fifth after even-par rounds of 72.

Despite sitting two strokes behind Homestead in ninth place with a 313, Warsaw coach Jack Carpenter was pleased with his team’s performance.

In the state golf rankings, the Tigers ranged anywhere from honorable mention to as high as 12th place this season, so sitting inside the top 10 was a pleasant sight, even despite getting caught in a storm that blew through central Indiana late in the team’s round.

“(The rain) kind of hit us with about three holes to play and probably cost us,” Carpenter said. “We gave up six shots in the last three holes, so it was kind of bad timing. Our goal was to be in the top 10, and then push as hard as we could to get as high as we can. We’re only 12 shots out of fourth, and if you have a day like today and we get the good end of the draw on the tee times, catching 12 shots is definitely doable.”

For the Tigers, Quinton Fifer’s round of 74 proved best, while Isaac Summers carded a 79 and the freshman tandem of RJ Ayers and Luke Baumgardner both shot 80.

To accommodate a series of storms set to hit the Midwest today, the IHSAA announced Tuesday that it would move up the start of today’s final round 30 minutes to 7:30 a.m.

“I said, ‘We’ll show up at 6 o’clock!,” Mazock joked.