BATON ROUGE ? LSU freshman Sang Yi followed an impressive 3-under par round of 69 in Friday’s first round with an even-par round of 72 in Saturday’s second round to finish the day in sole possession of fourth at the Schenkel/E-Z-Go Invitational at Forest Heights Country Club.
Yi finds himself just one shot off the lead as he tees off in Sunday’s final round with a chance to earn his best career finish after firing a two-day total of 3-under 141 at the par 72 layout.
Not only that, but Yi is in position to become the second LSU Tiger in as many tournaments to win medalist honors as sophomore standout John Peterson captured his first career tourney title in leading LSU to the team championship at the John Hayt Invitational its last time out on Feb. 24.
As a team, the 18th-ranked Tigers posted an 18-hole score of 4-over 292 on Saturday as they went up two spots on the leaderboard into ninth place with a two-day total of 12-over 588.
Peterson enjoyed the best performance of the day for the Tigers as he rebounded from a 9-over 81 in the first round with a team-low 3-under 69 in Saturday’s second round to catapult himself into a tie for 56th place after opening the day in a tie for 92nd place. Peterson’s 3-under par 69 matched the second-lowest round of the day of the 96 golfers competing at the Schenkel Invitational.
Sophomore Andrew Loupe and freshman Austin Gutgsell are each in a tie for 48th place at 5-over 149 after 36 holes as Gutgsell posted a 2-over 74 and Loupe carded a 5-over 77 on Saturday afternoon. Freshman Josh Jones recorded a second-round 6-over 78 to finish the day in 93rd place.
The ninth-ranked Florida Gators and 16th-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks have taken over the top spot in the team standings as they now lead the 15th-ranked Tennessee Volunteers by one shot with matching 36-hole scores of 3-over 579. After taking a three-shot lead into Saturday’s second round, Tennessee fell back into third place with a team score of 5-over 293 on the day.
Florida’s Tim McKenney, NC State’s Matt Hill and Augusta State’s Taylor Floyd enter Sunday’s final round with a one-stroke lead after finishing the day at 4-under 140 for the championship.
The Tigers are paired with Oklahoma and Vanderbilt in the final round and are scheduled to tee it up from the back nine on Sunday beginning at 8:30 a.m. CT. Live scoring of the final round is set to run by Golfstat and can be found online by logging onto www.golfstat.com.
SCHENKEL/E-Z-GO INVITATIONAL ? SECOND ROUND RESULTS
TEAM SCORES (Par 576)
T1. South Carolina 291-288 ? 579 +3; T1. Florida 292-287 ? 579 +3; 3. Tennessee 287-293 ? 580 +4; 4. NC State 295-287 ? 582 +6; T5. Kentucky 297-287 ? 584 +8; T5. Georgia Southern 291-293 ? 584 +8; 7. North Carolina 302-284 ? 586 +10; 8. North Florida 290-297 ? 587 +11; T9. LSU 296-292 ? 588 +12; T9. Ole Miss 295-293 ? 588 +12; T11. Oklahoma 293-297 ? 590 +14; T11. Vanderbilt 296-294 ? 590 +14; T11. Virginia 296-294 ? 590 +14; 14. Augusta State 298-293 ? 591 +15; 15. Georgia State 295-297 ? 592 +16; 16. Auburn 294-301 ? 595 +19; 17. Iowa 302-294 ? 596 +20; 18. Notre Dame 311-298 ? 609 +33.
TOP 10 INDIVIDUALS (Par 144)
T1. Taylor Floyd, Augusta State, 69-71 ? 140 -4; T1. Matt Hill, NC State, 71-69 ? 140 -4; T1. Tim McKenney, Florida, 72-68 ? 140 -4; 4. Sang Yi, LSU, 69-72 ? 141 -3; T5. Darren Blair, NC State, 70-72 ? 142 -2; T5. Logan Blondell, Georgia Southern, 71-71 ? 142 -2; T5. Andy Winings, Kentucky, 71-71 ? 142 -2; T8. James Kania, Kentucky, 74-69 ? 143 -1; T8. Henrik Norlander, Augusta State, 71-72 ? 143 -1; T8. Glenn Northcutt, Auburn, 69-74 ? 143 -1.
LSU SCORES
4. Sang Yi, 69-72 ? 141 -3
T48. Andrew Loupe, 72-77 ? 149 +5
T48. Austin Gutgsell, 75-74 ? 149 +5
T56. John Peterson, 81-69 ? 150 +6
93. Josh Jones, 80-78 ? 158 +14