The Valparaiso University men’s golf team continued competition at the National Golf Invitational, an inaugural postseason tournament hosted by Golfweek at the par-72, 7360-yard Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Ariz. by completing the second round on Saturday. The Beacons were once again led by Yianni Kostouros (Crown Point, Ind. / Crown Point [Ball State]).  

How It Happened

• Kostouros turned in his second straight subpar round, carding a 71 (-1) to pace the team. He owns a 36-hole score of 139 (-5) and is tied for third in a 63-player field entering Sunday’s final round.
• Out of the No. 5 spot in the lineup, Padraic Sim (Spanish Fort, Ala. / had the team’s second-best score for the second straight day. This time he utilized 74 strokes (+2) to end Day 2 tied for 27^th at 145 (+1).
• Rounding out the team’s top three was Mason Bonn (Sherwood, Ore. / Sherwood), who delivered a 75 (+3) to finish the day at 147 (+3, t-39).
• As a team, Valpo completed the second round in 10^th of 13 at 583 (+7). Texas State climbed into the team lead at 565 (-11), while Wyoming’s Tyler Severin holds the top spot on the player leaderboard at 135 (-9).

Inside the Round

• Over the first two rounds, Valpo has averaged 4.03 strokes on par-4 holes, by far the team’s best holes of the tournament so far.
• The squad has drained 31 birdies, led by nine from Kostouros.
• Kostouros has done good work on both par 3s (3.00) and par 4s (3.85).

Thoughts from Head Coach Dave Gring

“Our shot execution just wasn’t very sharp today. The conditions were really good and we simply didn’t get the ball as close to the hole as we did yesterday. The speed with our putting was good, but we seemed to be just barely missing birdie putts all day. We only made 12 birdies today versus the 19 we had yesterday. A lot of that was from our proximity not being as close to the hole as in the first round.”

“We only had one double bogey on the scorecards yesterday and we had six today. Three of them were on the Par 5s and two more were on the Par 3s, so that really hurt our scoring opportunities. This course commands good shots on every hole, so we will need to have better shot execution tomorrow.”

“Yianni had an impressive round today from the standpoint that he wasn’t hitting the ball nearly as well as yesterday, but he managed to find a way to effectively score. His chipping and putting was terrific around the greens. He stayed very patient the entire round and didn’t lose his poise or concentration during the round. He’s going to need to be very patient tomorrow and make good decisions. He’s in a great position to finish the tournament well, taking one shot at a time for his final round.”

Up Next

The tournament and season will conclude on Sunday with the third and final round. A link to live scoring via GolfStat available on ValpoAthletics.com.