Preston Tied For Second After Day One At Rice Intercollegiate

Monday, February 21

Houston, TX

All Day

Bowling Green State University

Rice Intercollegiate

February 21, 2011 | Men's Golf

By: by Matthew Daley, Athletic Communications Intern

DAY ONE RESULTS, BY TEAM (.pdf) --- TOP 20 LEADERBOARD (.pdf)

LEADERS, HOLE-BY-HOLE (.pdf) --- FINAL ROUND PAIRINGS (.pdf)

Drew Preston, a junior from Ada, Mich., owns two career tournament wins in his three seasons as a Falcon. Now, in his first action in four months, Preston threatens to win a third.

Preston and the Bowling Green State University men's golf team are opening the spring portion of their schedule at the Rice Intercollegiate, a 54-hole tournament in Houston, Texas. As part of a 15-team field, the Falcons played two rounds on Monday (Feb. 21) at the Westwood Golf Club. The final round is on Tuesday (Feb. 22).

After the first day's 36 holes, Preston is tied for second with a total of 139 (72-67), just one shot behind the leader.

Gustaf Kocken of Louisiana-Monroe scored a second-round 66 to earn the tournament lead.

Preston shot par for the first round, keeping him in 18th place, five shots behind the leader. He even trailed teammate Parker Hewit, who finished the first round in 11th. However, Preston used a strong front nine, going five-under-par for the nine holes, to vault himself back into contention.

In fact, Preston shot seven-under-par on the front nine during the day's two rounds. Overall, he is in a three-way tie for second with Gaston De La Torre of New Mexico State and Calvin Pearson of Wichita State. Three others are tied for fifth, two shots behind the leader, while another group of three is three shots back in a tie for eighth.

As a team, the Falcons reside in tenth place out of 15 teams, but the Orange and Brown are certainly in a position to move up. The team played very close to its season average, shooting 583 (293-290) over Monday's two rounds. BGSU is one shot behind ninth-place Nebraska and four behind Texas-San Antonio.

The Falcons are seven shots out of the top five, and they trail tournament-leader Florida Gulf Coast by 17 shots.

More importantly, Bowling Green leads their lone Mid-American Conference opponent this week. The Miami Redhawks also made the trip to Houston, and they are 13 shots behind BGSU in 13th place.

After an opening-round, Parker Hewit fell back to a tie for 44th place with a total score of 148 (71-77). Meanwhile, sophomore Wes Gates parlayed rounds of 74 and 73 to 39th place overall.

Chris Melvin carded a 149 (76-73) for the day, while Charlie Olson scored 81 and 83 for a total of 164.

The final round is scheduled to begin with a shotgun start at 8:15 a.m. CST on Tuesday morning. The Falcon contingent will begin on the back nine, playing with with Missouri State and Louisiana Tech. Drew Preston's day will start as the second group on the 10th hole.