Titan men's golf team leads Titan Winter Invitational after two rounds

Mathieu Echelard made quite a debut for the Eastern Florida State College men's golf team Monday afternoon.

The freshman leads the Titan Winter Invitational after shooting a 71 in the morning and a 69 in the afternoon rounds at Suntree Country Club.

He holds a five-stroke lead over teammate Ryan Rozic who had a 73 in the first round and a 72 in the second round for a 145. Central Alabama's Jake Maples, Southeastern's Gustavo Vaccaro and Wallace State's Trey Hanvey also shot a 145 to tie for second heading into Tuesday's final round.

"They played hard all day, it was a long first day and they hung in there and played well," Eastern Florida State College men's golf coach Jamie Howell said. "Everything is dry as toast with the weather and the course is fast, which is normal and the greens are fast which is also normal. I think that is the beauty of this course."

Rozic helped the Titans "blue" team to the top of the leaderboard after two rounds as they lead Florida Tech and Palm Beach Atlantic by six strokes.

Rounding out the "Blue" team was Fraser Davren (149), Brad Bawden (150), Tyler Bennett (151) and Michael Stewart finished with a 152.

The "White" team also fared well in Day 1 with a total score of 608. Echelard led the team with his 140 and Kyle Decenzo shot a 148, Taylor Whalen finished with a 158, Gregory Darnell shot 160 and Patxi Londaitz shot 170.

 "We just have to do the same thing we did today, keep the mistakes down and play our game, if we do that we will be OK," Howell said. "We know the course as well as anyone and we just have to go out and play well again."

The final round of the Titan Winter Invitational will begin at 8 a.m. at Suntree Country Club.