Artac & Fort Pace Chants on Day One of Gator Invite

Saturday, February 16

Gainesville, Fla.

All Day

Coastal Carolina University

Florida Gators Invitational

2/16/2019 9:01:00 PM | Men's Golf

Gator Invitational - Round 1 & 2 Results (PDF)

Coastal Carolina men’s golf is tied for eighth after two rounds in Florida

Gainesville, Fla. – The Coastal Carolina men's golf team carded team scores of 288 and 289 over the first two rounds of play on Saturday at the highly-touted Florida Gators Invitational held at the Mark Bostick Golf Course in Gainesville, Fla.

The Chanticleers are tied for eighth-place overall on the team leaderboard with a 36-hole team score of 577, +17. Coastal is tied with Missouri (577, +17) and just 13 strokes out of the top five in the 15-team field that includes seven top 50 nationally ranked programs by Golfstat.

As a team, Coastal was third overall in birdies with 31 and sixth among all 15 participating teams with a par-3 scoring average of 3.26 on the day.

"We had an interesting day today. We had some nice individual rounds but nobody really put together a complete day. We are in a good position to have a solid finish here with a nice day tomorrow," stated head coach Jim Garren. "Those 68s were good by Morgan and Zack. It was nice to see Zack bounce back. That opening round got away from him and I'm so proud of the effort he put in to get back on track. Wes battled hard in the first round and States fought hard in the second round to post solid scores. We need a total team effort tomorrow and all five guys in the game."

Senior Wes Artac posted a first round 70, even par, and a second round 75, +5, to finish the day in a tie for 42nd overall with a 36-hole score of 145, +5. Artac totaled 25 birdies over his first 36-holes of play, which was tied for the sixth most for the entire tournament field on Saturday.

Matching Artac with a two-round score of 145, +5 was States Fort, as the junior jumped up 11 spots on the individual leaderboard from his first round 74, +4, to the second round with his score of 71, +1, on the afternoon.

Morgan Deneen led the Chants with a first round 68, -2 under par, but carded a second round score of 79, +9, to move back into a tie for 51st overall with his two-round combined score of 147, +7. The second-year Chant is fourth overall with nine birdies for the tournament, eight of which came in his first round 68.

Newcomer Zack Taylor did just the opposite of fellow teammate Deneen, as Taylor recovered from a first round 80, +10, to post a second round score of 68, -2 under par, which included five birdies and 10 pars on the round, to move up into a tie for 53rd overall at 148, +8.

Senior Daniel Overas was consistent on Saturday as he turned in rounds of 76 and 75 to finish the day in a tie for 69th overall at 151, +11.

Playing as an individual for the event, freshman Tyler Gray tallied back-to-back rounds of 75 for a 36-hole score of 150, +10, to place in a tie for 65th overall after day one of play.

No. 3 Vanderbilt leads the event with a two-round combined team score of 557, -3 under par. No. 29 Liberty (562, +2) and No. 30 South Florida (563, +3) are second and third, respectively, while No. 33 Florida (564, +4), No. 38 West Virginia (564, +4) and No. 19 North Florida (564, +4) are tied for fourth-place overall.

The Chants will tee off on hole number one tomorrow at 8 a.m. ET.

Live scoring can be found here.

For complete coverage of CCU men's golf, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalMGolf (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at goccusports.com.