Raiders looking solid thru 36 holes in Birmingham

Tuesday, September 29

Birmingham, AL

Middle Tennessee

Graeme McDowell Invitational

9/29/2020 7:16:00 PM | Men's Golf

Barnard, Owens inside Top 10 at Greystone

By: @MTAthletics

Round 2 Results

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – After a lackluster finish last week at the Scenic City Intercollegiate, Head Coach Mark McEntire led the Blue Raiders into the Graeme McDowell Invitational looking for some low numbers and got exactly that on Tuesday.

His team posted a 3-over par 291 in the opening round before carding a 4-under 284 in the afternoon, the third best round of the day in the 10-team field.

Middle Tennessee moved into fourth place by the end of the second round, sitting nine strokes off the pace set by Georgia Southern and six strokes back of host UAB who has already won two events this season.

A trio of Blue Raiders land inside the Top 20 thru 36 holes, with senior Tanner Owens and sophomore Michael Barnard leading the bunch at 2-under par and tied for eighth out of 69 golfers.

Owens posted a bogey-free round of 5-under par 67 in the afternoon round, matching the field's best round of the day, while Barnard was steady as can be with back-to-back rounds of 1-under par 71.

"I feel like we are very close to playing a really good round of golf as a team," McEntire exclaimed. "We got a great round of 67 this afternoon from Tanner and it was good to see Mike get two rounds under par with signs of our other players close to shooting some red numbers."

Graduate transfer Connor McKay ranks tied for 18^th thru 36 holes after posting his first under par round as a Blue Raider in round one and is currently 1-over par (71-74=145) for the tournament.

Junior Cooper Sears closed out the day inside the top half of the field, posting a 5-over par mark thru 36 holes with redshirt freshman Gavin Clements and true freshman Owen Stamper not far behind at 7-over and 8-over, resepectively.

Josh Morris (+12), Daniel Love (+14) and Palmer Sadlowski (+24) round out the scoring for the Blue Raiders on day one.

Wednesday's final round begins with split tee times off holes 1 and 10 with Middle Tennessee teeing off at 8:20 and 8:30 a.m. on the first tee. Live scoring can be followed on Golfstat.

"I'm looking for us to build on a good start and show we have learned from the final round last week to get us a solid finish and build some momentum heading into our home event at The Grove," McEntire added.