Georgia Southern was gaining ground, trailing by just a stroke and looking to make a run at the top of the standings Saturday in the second round of the Schenkel E-Z-Go Invitational, but that back nine reared its ugly head and the Eagles (8-over 584) finished tied with Kentucky and five strokes behind leaders No. 9 Florida and No. 16 South Carolina.
The second-round slide started with a showdown between Joe Monte and a sprinkler head on the 17th hole.
“You really can’t (plan for) something like that, especially when it’s half the size of your foot,” Monte said after what he described as a “mediocre drive” looked to be in good shape on the fairway before landing on the sprinkler head, taking a 90-degree turn and settling in a bad lie deep in the rough. “The ball travels all that way just to hit that that little thing.”
Still eying a respectable finish on the hole, things got worse. Monte lifted his next shot into the branches of a pine tree before settling for a double bogey. He doubled the 18th hole as well.
“After that I just had to take my medicine, and it was tough to swallow,” said Monte, who shot even par on round one and finished Saturday’s second round at 6-over 78. “I was still fighting at that point, and that hole just killed it. (The next hole) was tough luck too. We’re going to have to forget about (yesterday) and we’re going to do a good job of that. I think (today) we’ve got a really great shot at playing well.
“The toughest thing for me now is just to forget about it, forget about where I am individually in the tournament and think about the team — think how I need to put up a round so that the team can pull this out.”
Logan Blondell matched his Friday score with an identical 1-under 71 — good for fifth place in the individual standings along with No. 14 North Carolina State’s Darren Blair.
Drew Letham also shot a 1-under 71 on the day, putting him at 2-over 146 for the tournament and helping keep GSU in the mix heading into the final day.
“We’ve got five guys and everybody’s got to do their part,” Blondell said. “I feel like I’m just one part of it, so I’m going to go out there and do my best and hopefully post another good one. We still haven’t had that good round of the week yet. I think if we put it all together we could have something special — hopefully have another comeback. Our team hasn’t had our best round, and no individual has had their best round yet.”
Georgia Southern coach Larry Mays agreed, citing that the Eagles were in similar situations in the previous two tournaments before having the best team showings in round three over the past couple of weeks.
“This is where we’ve been the last few tournaments,” Mays said. “We played in a field similar to this down in Jacksonville, maybe not quite this good a field, and we kind of were in this situation the whole weekend. It’s not like we’re not accustomed to it. We played in the final group the last two days there, we played well in Hawaii and we’re playing well again. If we can just keep that good play going I think the guys are comfortable in there skin playing against tough competition. It’s nothing different than we’ve been doing.”
Play resumes at 8 a.m. this morning and the awards ceremony is scheduled for 3 p.m.
Divots: North Carolina shot the high round Saturday, carding a 4-under 284 to gain ground on the leaderboard. After shooting a 10-over 302 Friday, the Tar Heels found themselves tied for seventh — seven strokes behind South Carolina and Florida heading into today. … No. 15 Tennessee, the only team to shoot under par on Friday, went five over to match GSU and slipped to third — two strokes ahead of North Carolina State and four ahead of Georgia Southern and Kentucky. … Augusta State’s Taylor Floyd, who is participating as an individual and whose score will not factor into the Jaguars’ team tally, is tied for first in the individual standings with N.C. State’s Matt Hill and Florida’s Tim McKenney (4-under 140). … Individual player Ryan Zabroske of GSU is tied for 11th individually with a 1-over 144 through two rounds.
Matt Yogus can be reached at (912) 489-9404.
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