The Valparaiso University men's golf team got its spring season underway on Monday as Ryan Somerville paced the team over the first 36 holes at the two-day, 54-hole Lake Jovita Invitational, co-hosted by Ball State and Richmond at the par-72, 7121-yard Lake Jovita Golf and Country Club in Dade City, Fla.
 
How It Happened

• Somerville had a strong opening round by carding a 71 before finishing Round 2 with a 76. His two-round score of 147 sits tied for 47^th in the 88-player field. He had eight birdies over the two rounds.
• Valpo's second-best score on Day 1 was from Adam Melliere, who had the team's best Round-2 score with a 72 after a 76 in Round 1. He finished the day at 148.
• Third on the team was Elliot Lee at 150 (73-77).
• The Beacons are 14^th on the team leaderboard at 595 (300-295). Xavier leads the tournament at 567, while Richmond's Carson Baez holds the top individual spot at nine under.

Thoughts from Head Coach Dave Gring
"While we always come into the first tournament of the year with a lot of excitement and ready to set the world on fire, we typically have some rust to kick off and a playing rhythm that we are trying to attain. The guys have prepared well this winter, but we had our struggles in scoring around the greens and making putts. Our putting speed and green reading wasn't good today, with too many 3-putts and missing a good amount of putts inside of five feet. There's some decent green complexes here at Lake Jovita, but nothing that is too challenging to navigate."
 
"The second area that we had our challenges was off of the tee.  The number of fairways that we hit was poor, and there were numerous times that we had to punch-out to recover. We only had 11 birdies in the second round, following 14 in the first round. We're going to need to improve this part of the game well tomorrow to give us better proximity to the hole and more birdie opportunities."
 
"In closing, we had some bright spots amongst our players. Elliot putted well in the first round, with 27 putts for the round. He had three birdies and a number of good saves for par. Adam hit 16 out of 18 greens in regulation in the second round. His strokes gained approach was much improved from the first round, with a lot of good iron shots. We are looking forward to tomorrow and finishing the tournament with our best team score."
 
Up Next
The third and final round of the event will take place on Tuesday.