March 25, 2008
Nacho Elvira fired an even-par 72 on Tuesday as Texas A&M climbed to eighth place after two rounds of the U.S. Collegiate Championship at the Golf Club of Georgia's Lakeside Course. The final round is Wednesday.
No. 5-ranked Southern California leads the 15-team event with a 36-hole score of 581, followed by No. 1 Alabama (583), No. 6 Oklahoma State (586), No. 7 Georgia Tech (586) and No. 3 UCLA (588).
A&M, which was in 11th place after an opening round 304, carded a 293 on Tuesday and is 16 shots back at 597. The Aggies lead three top-10 teams -- No. 2 Georgia (600), No. 4 Charlotte (601) and No. 9 Stanford (611).
Oklahoma State's Trent Leon leads the individual standings by two strokes with rounds of 69-69=138.
A&M's Matt Van Zandt is tied for 11th (71-74=145), Elvira is tied for 14th (74-72=146), Bronson Burgoon is tied for 51st (81-74=155), Bobby Gates is tied for 56th (78-78=156) and Andrea Pavan is in 73rd (90-73=163). Thanks in part to four birdies, Pavan improved a whopping 17 strokes from the first to the second round.
"We played much better today," A&M Coach J.T. Higgins said. "I was proud of our guys for coming back. Once again, we showed we can compete with anybody. We'll have a great round tomorrow and see how high we can finish. We didn't finish as strong as we'd like today, but otherwise I was very happy with our round."