Eagles card 10th-lowest round in conference history at Saint Leo’s Invitational
DADE CITY, Fla. – The Carson-Newman men's golf team carded the second-lowest round in the history of the South Atlantic Conference with a first round 11-under at the Saint Leo Invitational at Lake Jovita Country Club, while senior Andrew Hall (Knoxville, Tenn.) birdied four of his last five holes during the second round for a career-low seven-under 65.
DADE CITY, Fla. – The Carson-Newman men's golf team carded the 10th-lowest round in the history of the South Atlantic Conference with a first round 11-under at the Saint Leo Invitational at Lake Jovita Country Club, while senior Andrew Hall (Knoxville, Tenn.) birdied four of his last five holes during the second round for a career-low seven-under 65.
All four scores that counted during Monday morning's round were at even-par or below par, while the highest second round score was just one-over 73. The SAC's low-round was recorded by Presbyterian in 2001 with a score of 271.
The Eagles followed up their program-low first round with a 283 during the second round and are 15 strokes off the lead in a tie for seventh with Florida Southern;Hall is tied for third on the individual leaderboard and trails the leader by five strokes.
"Today's rounds are a breakthrough for our team; playing the best teams in the country and our showing that we can compete with them," coach Randy Wylie said. "We need to go play well again tomorrow. Andrew Hall palyed exceptionally well with a 68-65. Playing well in big tournaments is going to become the identity of who we are as a program."
Hall fired a 68 during his first round, which was tied for the team-low with freshman Jake Headrick (Maryville, Tenn.).
Headrick followed up his four-under first round with an even-par 72 to finish the day four-under and is tied for 22nd. The freshman had 10 birdies over the course of the round.
Senior Jace Devault (Bluff City, Tenn.) shot a two-under 70 during the first round and a one-over 73 and sits at one-under 143 on the day. Devault tallied the second-most birdies on the team with 10 and is tied for 36th.
Junior Dalton Reese (Warrenton, Ga.) finished the two rounds at even-par 144 after a round of one-under and a round of one-over during his first day of competition on the year. Reese pared 26 of the 36 holes he played and is tied for 41st.
Senior Nicklaus Kennedy (London, Ontario, Canada) fired two rounds of three-over 75 to sit at six-over on the leaderboard with a combined score of 150. Kennedy is tied for 70.
The Eagles are the third-best team when playing on par-fives with an average stroke score of 4.55 and are 18-under on the course's hardest holes.
Lynn's Mateo Gomez leads the tournament at 16-under with two rounds of 63 and 65; Gomez's teammate Mario Beltran dropped a hole-in-one on the par-three fourth-hole. Lynn leads the team competition by three strokes over Barry and nine strokes over North Alabama.
The final round of the Saint Leo's Invitational tees off Tuesday morning.
T7 Carson-Newman 277 283 560
T3 Andrew Hall 68-65 133
T22 Jake Headrick 68-72 140
T36 Jace Devault 70-73 143
T41 Dalton Reese 71-73 144
T70 Nicklaus Kennedy 75-75 150
