Aggies Deep in the Fight at NCAA Championship

CARLSBAD, Calif. – On an opening day where no team was able to beat par, the No. 21 Texas A&M Aggies filed a 10-over 298 in Friday's round at the NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championship, tied with Wake Forest for 15^th place.
 
The Maroon & White enter Saturday's action eight strokes behind leaders Arizona and Virginia who matched rounds of 2-over 290. More importantly, Texas A&M is just three strokes below the cutoff to move on to the eight-team match play bracket following Monday's fourth round. Florida currently stands in eighth place at 7-over 295 with East Tennessee State, Notre Dame and Texas one stroke back and Baylor, Stanford and Vanderbilt sitting two strokes out.
 
Jaime Montojo was Texas A&M's top performer Friday, shooting 1-over at the par-72, 7,538-yard Omni La Costa Resort & Spa North Course. He is tied with 15 golfers in 25th place.
 
Daniel Rodrigues is one stroke back at 2-over 74, tied for 41st place. Phichaksn Maichon and Michael Heidelbaugh checked in at 3-over 75 and 4-over 76, respectively.
 
Saturday's action starts at 2 p.m. from hole No. 1 with Texas A&M paired with New Mexico and Oklahoma State.
 
Live scoring is available at Golfstat.
 
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Texas A&M Quotes
Head Coach Brian Kortan
 
On what they learned from about the course in the first round...
"I think we were pretty comfortable out there. The golf course in general is set up so that every shot has a challenge to it. We really had pretty good day and were going along pretty well, but just didn't finish off the round they way we wanted to. I'd say for the most part what we learned is we can't let up. We have to keep plugging away shot by shot."
 
On the intense battles that will develop along the cutoff lines the rest of the weekend...
"We can only control us. We need to do things we do well and do it for four rounds. If we take care of ball and do the things we preach about doing in terms of being efficient and hitting balls up and down and stacking shots, we'll be in the position we need to be. We need to concentrate on that and understand it's going to be tight. It's the national championship, so it's going to be tight."
 
 
TEAM SCORES

t-1	Virginia	290	+2
t-1	Arizona	290	+2
3	North Carolina	291	+3
4	Georgia Tech	292	+4
t-5	Auburn	293	+5
t-5	Illinois	293	+5
7	Ohio State	294	+6
8	Florida	295	+7
t-9	East Tennessee State	296	+8
t-9	Notre Dame	296	+8
t-9	Texas	296	+8
t-12	Baylor	297	+9
t-12	Stanford	297	+9
t-12	Vanderbilt	297	+9
t-15	Texas A&M	298	+10
t-15	Wake Forest	298	+10
t-17	Florida State	299	+11
t-17	New Mexico	299	+11
t-19	LSU	301	+13
t-19	Oklahoma	301	+13
t-21	Oklahoma State	303	+15
t-21	SMU	303	+15
23	California	304	+16
24	Tennessee	305	+17
t-25	Clemson	306	+18
t-25	Utah	306	+18
t-27	North Florida	307	+19
t-27	West Virginia	307	+19
29	Texas Tech	308	+20
30	Purdue	310	+22

 
TEXAS A&M SCORES

t-25	Jaime Montojo	73	+1
t-41	Daniel Rodrigues	74	+2
t-63	Phichaksn Maichon	75	+3
t-81	Michael Heidelbaugh	76	+4
t-141	Aaron Pounds	81	+9