Harrison Price led South Whidbey to a tie for third place at the Everett Invitational boys golf tournament on Thursday.

South Whidbey scored 420 points and tied with Stanwood. Arlington (397) and Cascade (407) were first and second, respectively.

Price shot 77 and claimed fifth place individually in his first round at Legion Memorial Golf Course.

“It really caught my eye well,” Price said. “Overall, I was satisfied.”

Price had 34 strokes through the front nine holes, two strokes under par. His mid-course stroke count gave him hope to finish lower than 77.

Price said he doesn’t like to think of a score he wants to get. On the other hand, he said he thought too much about maintaining his two-under-par score, which led to some mistakes in his putting.

“That probably wasn’t the best thing to do,” Price said. “It got in my head a little bit.”

South Whidbey was the only 2A school at the tournament. Of the eight teams, four are 4A and three are 3A. Price said the classification differences are less important in golf.

“I never really thought about it,” Price said. “They’re just a bunch of other golfers that I’ve played with before. I don’t think about where they go to school.”

“We definitely showed them little schools still have some punch in them,” Price added.

Falcon senior captain Shane Thompson shot 78 and finished in eighth place. Jesse Portillo shot 85, Connor Mock shot 88 and Tyler Nelson and Patrick Parnell both shot 92. Nelson’s score was the reported fifth score, even though Parnell and Nelson both shot 92.

South Whidbey’s top two golfers both said the invitational tournaments are less important than conference matches. Instead, the value of the invitational matches is the preparation for the district and state tournaments.

“It’s not more important than a Cascade [Conference] match,” Thompson said, “because we’re playing for our school there.”

Thursday’s tournament was the first time in three matches that Thompson’s strokes counted toward the team’s score. Thompson said he knew his stroke was off and felt confident he fixed his swing.

“I was staying in the moment,” Thompson said. “I’ve been working really hard on that.”

Price said he let Thompson get himself out of the slump, and that he trusted Thompson would be back to form.

“His game’s coming around now,” Price said. “He had a rough couple of weeks, but we pretty much worked it out of him.”

The Falcons return to Everett on Monday, April 4 for the Dolan Invitational at Everett Golf and Country Club.