Day Two – MVC Golf Championships

Bautista & Illinois State Pull Away

(Waterloo, IL) – Illinois State’s Francis Bautista fired a 65 to take the second-round lead at the MVC Golf Championships. The Tujunga, California native sparked the Redbirds to a massive, eleven-shot lead in the team competition.

There were just seven, sub-par rounds yielded by the rain-soaked Annbriar Golf Course and four of those rounds were recorded by Redbirds. The Valley’s top-ranked golfer, T.J. Barger and Max Faucquez were two-under and Samuel Ottwell carded a one-under 70.

Bautista leads first-round leaders Anthony De Schutter (Southern Illinois) and Omar Khalid (Evansville) by five strokes. Both players were six-under headed into today’s competition and recorded one-over 72’s during today’s action.

Bautista has been brilliant. He has birdied ten of his first 36-holes and carded an eagle during Sunday’s opening round. If he shoots 73 or better on Tuesday he would be better than either of the last two winners of this tournament.

During the MVC’s two previous visits to Annbriar the winning individual winners recorded scores of 212 and 214. Bautista’s two-round total of 132 puts him in a great position to record the MVC’s best-ever score at the Waterloo, Illinois course.

Defending champion Trey Wall (Murray State) recorded Monday’s second-best round with a 67. Wall is nine shots behind Bautista.

SIU’s Ben Keil (-4), Barger (-2) and Evansville’s Lennon Albans (-2) are the only other players with red, crooked numbers. Wall, Faucquez and Valparaiso’s Adam Melliere are all one under par.

Defending champion Illinois State is 12-under par. It’s 568 two-day score, puts them in position to better last year’s raw total of 856.

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