Once again, the Salthawks’ performance at their home invite at Carey Park baffled coach Charlie Pierce. Playing on a track they know like the back of their hands, the Salthawks fired a disappointing 323 and couldn’t come close to contending in the team race, finishing 12th out of 34 teams. Pierce said this trend isn’t anything new and has existed for several years. However, there was a silver lining for the Salthawks on Friday. Playing against arguably the deepest and most talented field of the year, junior Jack Lanham fired an even par 71, which put him in a four-way tie for second place with three of the top golfers in the state – Maize senior Kale Reynolds, defending Hutchinson Invitational champion James Henderson of Blue Valley West and Shawnee Mission East junior Andrew Spencer. In a sudden death playoff, Lanham outlasted Henderson and Spencer. He then took Reynolds, who’ll play collegiately at Kansas next year, all the way to a seventh extra hole. Reynolds finally claimed second place after Lanham’s 9-foot par putt on No. 8, a par 3, came just a revolution of a roll short of sneaking in. Although Lanham was a little bummed he couldn’t capture second place, getting third at the venue that will host Class 6A State in a few weeks was quite thrill. “Coming into the day if you said I would have gotten third, I would have been really happy with that,” Lanham said. “Once I got comfortable, I started hitting the ball better. I showed I can contend with some good players. Hopefully when state comes around I can contend there.” Lanham started on No. 16 in a shotgun start. He progressively started hitting the ball better and finally made a birdie on the par-4 ninth. He finished with a bang to get back to even par. It included a chip-in for birdie on 14 and then had a mere tap-in putt for birdie on the short, par-4 15th. Besides Lanham, none of the other Salthawks were able to break 80. It was a head-scratcher for Pierce, especially after the Salthawks played well in Topeka on Monday. Now, he said it’s on him to get his squad more mentally sound before Hutchinson hopefully gets another chance to play a tournament at Carey Park at state. “As much as anything, it’s you’ve got parents here, grandparents here, girlfriends here and the whole 9 yards, everybody’s here,” Pierce said. “So I think they get hyped up to play. Then they make a bogey, then they make another one and it just balloons. They’ve got this idea that they have to shoot 71 each time they’re out there, which they don’t have to do. But it’s the way it works. I need to do better coaching.”