Sophomore Rodrigo Garcia Teruel (Puebla, Mexico / Modern Academy) led the way for the Valparaiso University men's golf team, helping the Beacons to their best round of the young season so far on Monday's opening day of the Bayou City Collegiate, hosted by Rice at the par-72, 7184-yard Westwood Golf Club in a warm and sunny Houston, Texas.
 
How It Happened

• Garcia Teruel holds the team lead through 36 holes with a score of 145. His day was highlighted by a 70 in Round 2, including an eagle on the 542-yard, par-5 18^th hole. He sits 21^st on the player leaderboard. Garcia Teruel, who turned in the best round by a Beacon this season and his career best round, hit par or better on 16 of 18 holes including birdie or better on four holes.
• Redshirt junior Ryan Somerville (Aurora, Ontario / Aurora) had a solid day with a 147, good for t-33. He turned in a 73 in Round 1 and 74 in Round 2. The highlight of his performance came on the 18^th hole in Round 1, when he turned in one of the team's two eagles on that hole.
• Two more Beacons enjoyed rounds of par or better on Monday. Sophomore Rob Politza (Lemont, Ill. / Lemont Township) had a 72 in Round 2, while freshman Charlie Davenport (Clarendon Hills, Ill. / Benet Academy) had a 71 in Round 1.
• As a team, Valpo turned in a 295 in Round 1 before a season-best 291 in Round 2. The Beacons are seventh of 14 on the team leaderboard at 586.
• Host Rice leads with a team score of 560, while Houston's Grant Doggett is shooting 133 (-11) to possess the top spot on the player leaderboard.

Thoughts from Head Coach Dave Gring
"In both of our rounds today, we had very poor starts to the round, playing the first six holes 11 over in the first round and 16 over in the second round. We were starting on the toughest part of the golf course, but we needed to manage those holes and have much better shot execution from all five players. The guys stayed resilient and bounced back in the middle of the first round and the last six holes of the second round to finish strong. The birdie production was pretty balanced across the five guys, but we still left a lot of scoring opportunities on the course. Tomorrow, we will need to play the middle of the back nine better and improve the speed of our putting to get our scores under par."
 
"In the first round, Charlie and Ryan had six birdies and an eagle between them to lead our team.  Rodrigo added six birdies in the first round, along with three birdies and an eagle in the second round. Rob had a terrific front nine in the second round, posting four birdies for us. We had seven double bogeys in today's rounds in scores that counted for our team, and we will need to clean that up tomorrow. We have a good plan in place for tomorrow and we will look forward to better shot execution to wrap up the tournament."
 
Up Next
The third and final round will take place on Tuesday. A link to live scoring via Clippd can be found on ValpoAthletics.com.