WAIKOLOA, Hawaii - Senior Sean Yu fired a 5-under par 67 in his second round at the Waikoloa Kings' Course, vaulting the Spartans up four spots on the team leaderboard at the Amer Ari Invitational.
"The boys fought really hard today," said head coach John Kennaday. It wasn't easy in the wind, I'm really proud of them."
Yu tallied four birdies, two bogeys and one eagle on Friday, a day after carding a 1-over par 73. His 5-under round tied for the second-lowest round of the day. Yu climbed into a tie for 22nd on the individual leaderboard.
Carl Corpus rallied over the final few holes and is tied with Yu for 22nd. Starting his round on the seventh hole, the freshman had a triple bogey and a double bogey on the back nine, in addition to a bogey and two birdies. At 4-over at the turn, Corpus posted three birdies and an eagle over the next five holes to end with a 1-under 71 in his second round.
The duo helped the Spartans climb from 12th to eighth in the team standings at 8-under par, ahead of No. 30 USC in ninth, No. 26 Oregon State in 14th and No. 25 Stanford in 16th. No. 2 ranked Georgia Tech leads the field at 33-under par. No. 1 ranked Pepperdine sits in fourth at 21-under par.
Bryce Wortman, Caleb Shetler and Parker Sisk all shot even par in their second rounds. The Spartans have tallied 38 birdies and three eagles over the first two rounds.
"It's really tough to play a perfect round of golf so it comes down to how you move on from a bad hole," Kennaday said. "We're getting better at that and will keep trying to get better."
The Spartans will play a third and final round on Saturday morning. SJSU placed 14th at last year's Amer Ari Invitational and took 12th in 2018.