Blue Devils in Fourth; Evans Leads by Three Entering Final Round

BATON ROUGE, La. – The Duke men’s golf team remained inside the top-five of the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional on Tuesday, moving into fourth place with a 3-over, 291, in the second round. Ethan Evans surged up the individual leaderboard with the best round on the course, a 5-under, 67, and leads the field by three strokes heading into the final round at the University Club.

The top five teams, following the conclusion of play on Wednesday afternoon, will advance to the NCAA Championship. Currently, Virginia leads the regional at 6-under, followed by Auburn (-1), Texas Tech (+3), Duke (+6) and Ohio State (+7).

HOW IT HAPPENED: ROUND TWO

• As a team, Duke started on the 10th tee and shot a 3-over, 291, for the second consecutive day. The Blue Devils are 6-over, 582, through 36 holes of play.
• The Blue Devils’ 3-over was the fourth-best score-to-par on the course on Tuesday, with only one team – Texas Tech (-1) – finishing under-par on the day.
• Ethan Evans paced Duke for the second round in a row, firing the low round on the course – a 5-under, 67. Evans started quickly, nearly holing his approach on the par-5 11th from 228 yards, before tapping in the one-footer for an eagle. The sophomore would then knock in a 30-footer for birdie on the next hole to get to 3-under through his first three holes of play. The lone blemish on his scorecard for the day, a double-bogey, came on the par-4 14th and moved Evans back to just 1-under. He responded with a birdie on the par-5 17th and made the turn to the front-nine at 2-under. Evans then played his final nine holes bogey-free with three more birdies, including back-to-back tap-ins on the par-5 third and par-4 fourth and connected on his final birdie of the day on the par-5 sixth. Evans enters the final round at 6-under, 138, overall and leads the individual leaderboard by three shots.
• Luke Sample and William Love both carded a 2-over, 74, on Tuesday.
• Sample played his first nine holes at 2-over but made eight pars while only dropping shots on No. 14, with a double-bogey. The junior got to under-par with a birdie on the 632-yard, par-5 third, after reaching the green in two and then took advantage of the other front-nine par-5, No. 6, with a long-distance putt for birdie. Sample tallied back-to-back bogeys on holes No. 7 and 8 to move back to 2-over, but…