April 02, 2004
The Texas A&M men's golf team carded rounds of 296-282=578 on Friday and is tied for eighth place at the 53rd annual Border Olympics at Laredo Country Club. The final round is scheduled for Saturday.
SMU blistered the course with an 18-under-par total of 282-276=558 to take a commanding 11-stroke lead over No. 14-ranked BYU (572). San Diego State is in third (573), followed by Lamar (574), Colorado State (576), No. 19 Arkansas (577), A&M (578), Texas Tech (578), Houston (587), North Texas (587), Michigan State (587), Texas-Arlington (589), Southeastern Louisiana (589), Rice (594), Texas-San Antonio (594) and Texas State (599).
SMU's Jerad Harklau leads the individual standings after posting a 10-under-par total of 65-69=134. Colorado State's Martain Laird is two strokes back at 68-68=136.
The Aggies struggled in the morning round, but rallied with a six-under-par total in the afternoon round, thanks largely to senior Stephen Reed's five-under-par 67.
A&M senior David Tasker is tied for 13th place with rounds of 71-70=141, while Reed is tied for 19th at 77-67=144. Also for the Aggies, sophomore Andrew Parr (76-71=147) and junior David Schultz (74-74=147) are tied for 36th, and sophomore Rand Arbuckle (76-74=150) is tied for 61st.
Competing as individuals for A&M, senior Mark Schultz (82-72=154) is tied for 81st, senior Parker Briley (84-74=158) is tied for 86th, sophomore Brook Gerky (80-80=160) is tied for 89th and freshman Peter Andrews (84-78=162) is tied for 91st.
"We never really got anything going in the morning round but we played better in the afternoon," A&M coach J.T. Higgins said. "I was really pleased with how we battled back. You've got to tip your hat to SMU. The course wasn't set up up very easy and it was windy. For them to shoot 18 under par was just terrific golf. For the most part, we played solid all day. If we can play well on Saturday, we have a chnace to move up in the standings quite a bit."
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