Aggies Climb to Seventh in Hawai'i

KAHUKU, Hawai'i-The 12^th-ranked Texas A&M men's golf team carded a 1-under 287 on Thursday and climbed to seventh place after two rounds of the John A. Burns Intercollegiate at the Turtle Bay Resort's Palmer Course on the north shore of O'ahu.

The Aggies sit at 1-under 575 (288-287) for the tournament and are nine shots out of third place with 18 holes to play. Defending champion and 10^th-ranked Cal had another solid round and tops the field with a 20-under 556, while SMU carded the low round of the day and moved into second place at 16-under overall. No. 25 New Mexico (556, -10) sits in third.

"We played okay today," Head coach J.T Higgins said. "We moved a little bit up the leaderboard, but the bottom line is the putts just aren't falling. We aren't playing as bad as our score would suggest, but it's like there is a lid on the hole. We're hoping to break that seal tomorrow and get some putts to drop. Greg Yates obviously had a really good round, and it's amazing that he shot 4-under despite playing the par-5s even, and they're all reachable. So I feel like even he feels like he could have done a little bit better."

No. 17 Duke (568, -8) is in fourth place, followed by No. 17 UNLV (-7), Colorado State (-5), A&M, Nevada (+2), host Hawai'i (+4) and Arizona (+5). Denver and Hawai'i-Hilo (+13) are tied for 11^th, with BYU (+18), Fresno State (+24), Utah (+31), UTEP (+31), Missouri (+32) and BYU-Hawai'i (+44) rounding out the field.

Redshirt freshman Greg Yates bounced back and had the Aggies' best round of the day, carding a 4-under 68 to move to an even-par 144 and 27^th place after two rounds of action. Senior Jordan Russell (72-73=145, +1) and true freshman Ty Dunlap (71-74=145, +1) are tied for 34^th, while junior Cameron Peck (74-72=146, +2) is in 36^th and senior Geoff Shaw (71-76=147, +3) is in 42^nd.  Junior Case Cochran, playing as an individual, is at 81-83=164.

"Hopefully we will have a terrific final found," Higgins said. "Obviously wining is a little bit out of reach, but these guys have a lot of pride and I think if we go out there tomorrow and have a good final round we'll leave here with a good feeling and kick off the spring the right way and get ready for next week."

The final round will get underway Friday with a shotgun start at 8 a.m. HST/12 p.m. CST.

Fans can follow the action through live scoring at Golfstat.com and aggieathletics.com. Updates will also be available on twitter at @AggieMensGolf. Fans can follow the Aggies' week-long trip to the islands via Facebook at facebook.com/AggieMensGolf.