Pollo Paces Wildcats’ Afternoon Rise at Arizona NIT

TUCSON, Ariz. – A marathon 36-hole Friday to open the Arizona NIT saw No. 18 Arizona Men’s Golf post a banner day, finishing in second place at 15-under par and four strokes behind first-place USC. In its 20^th year hosting the tournament, this finish tied Arizona’s best opening-day finish since its wire-to-wire win of the 2003 event. Arizona freshman Zach Pollo fired a blistering-low 65 in his afternoon round to rise up to a tie for first place on the leaderboards.

“We had a very good day out on the course today, which was a testament to our team’s preparation and execution of our gameplan,” said head coach Jim Anderson. “We overcame a bit of a slow start in the morning and then got things rolling later in the afternoon. Hats off to Zach on a tremendous second round to pace us. We are set up well for Saturday, and I feel good about how we will play in the final round.”

Pollo opened the day with a 2-under round of 70 before carding his 65 in the afternoon. He would sit in a tie for first place at 9-under by day’s end alongside Oklahoma’s Matthew Troutman. The Wildcats also got top-25 showings on Friday from Sam Sommerhauser (T-14^th, -3) and Tiger Christensen (T-21^st, -2).

After shooting 6-under and tying for fifth place in the first round, the Wildcats carded a 9-under round in the afternoon to climb up to second place. Arizona lead all teams in par-4 scoring at 3-under and finished Friday in second in par-5 scoring at 24-under. The Cats would sink four eagles on Omni Tucson National’s par 5’s to bolster their scoring, which were the most among all teams.

Arizona will look to catch the Trojans and make up a four shot difference in Saturday’s final round of 18 holes. Pollo will look to win his first collegiate tournament as a freshman in the finale as well.