Florida sets early Mason Rudolph Championship Pace

FRANKLIN, TN (March 31, 2017) -- Four Florida Gators are tied for eighth and as a result the No. 5 ranked team in the country is leading after the first round of the Mason Rudolph Championship. The Gators, 8-under, are looking to improve on their second place finish from a year ago at the Vanderbilt Legends Club and they are also in search of their second straight and fourth overall win of the year. Florida won their last outing at the Schenkel Invitational in the middle of March. For Florida the eighth place group is comprised of Sam Horsfield, Gordon Neale, Andy Zhang and Alejandro Tosti. All four players opened their weekend with 2-under 69's and they are three of the pace being set by Vanderbilt's Theo Humphrey. Play at home the Vanderbilt Humphrey fired a 5-under 66 on Friday to take the individual lead. Even-par after 10 holes the junior went to work late in his round as he birdied five of his final eight hole to rally to the first round lead. Humphrey, who played in the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, capped his back nine surge with birdies on each of the final two holes. Behind Humphrey in the medalist standings are Mateusz Gradecki (East Tennessee St.) in second place at 4-under and Joey Savoie (Middle Tennessee St.), Carson Schaake (Iowa), Josh Sedeno (Alabama), Kieran Vincent (Liberty), Calum Masters (Troy) in a tie for third at 3-under. Overall 22 players signed for under-par rounds on Friday. The remainder of the team standings looks like this; defending champions No. 3 Vanderbilt (-7) is in second, Alabama (-6) is third, No. 25 Duke (-4) is in fourth and Middle Tennessee State; Iowa are tied for fifth at 2-under.