Strong Round-2 performances from redshirt senior Ryan Somerville (Aurora, Ontario / Aurora) and junior Rob Politza (Lemont, Ill. / Lemont township) highlighted the Valparaiso University men's golf team's first day of action at Drake's Zach Johnson Invitational, hosted at the par-71, 6961-yard Glen Oaks Country Club in Des Moines, Iowa.
 
How It Happened

• Politza and Somerville each posted 69s (-2) in Round 2 and both finished the day at 1-over 143 after going +3 in the opening round. They are tied for 22^nd in a 79-player field after making 12-player jumps in Round 2.
• Somerville went par or better on 15 of 18 holes in Round 1, but had a double and just one birdie. In the second round, he shot a 3-under 32 on the front nine including an eagle on the par-5 ninth hole on his way to the season-low 69.
• Politza teed off from Hole 11 and started his second round with birdies on three of his first six holes, sitting at -3 through the first third of the round.
• Freshman Tyler Samaan (Elgin, Ill. / Burlington) led the team with a 70 (-1) in Round 1. He birdied three straight holes – 1, 2 and 3 – and was 2-under on the front nine. He finished the day at 146, tied for 33^rd.
• The Beacons are ninth of 13 at 583 (292-290). The team's second round on Monday was the squad's second-best 18-hole overall score this fall. Valpo is ahead of Western Illinois, Creighton, Eastern Illinois and UNI. Lindenwood leads at 556, while South Dakota State's Jake Olson is the frontrunner for medalist honors with a 9-under 133.

Thoughts From Head Coach Dave Gring
"We were third in the field for pars (106), but we were 10th in the field for birdies (26), after the first two rounds. We still aren't converting enough of our greens in regulation to birdies. Part of that is proximity to the hole, but we had a lot of putts within 10' that we narrowly missed. Our players are reading the greens pretty well, but we aren't matching the necessary speed of those putts with the line, so we're just off the mark. Also, we had nine double-bogeys or worse in today's rounds. Some of those were poorly executed shots, but some of those were from the middle of the fairway with a wedge in the hand. Improvement in our putting and eliminating these big holes is going to make a huge difference for our team scoring."
 
"We had some solid rounds from our Top-3 players today. Tyler led the field with 26 pars for both rounds. He had three birdies in a row during Holes 1-3 and he only had two bogeys in that first round. In the second round, Ryan had five birdies and an eagle on the ninth hole, while Rob had five birdies and two bogeys. We are playing on a quality golf course and those three guys gave us a lot of good ball-striking in all three of those rounds. We certainly saw some excellent drives off the tee and good proximity to the hole from all three of those sub-par rounds."
 
Up Next
The final round of the fall season will take place on Tuesday. A link to live scoring via Clippd is available on ValpoAthletics.com.