No. 9 LSU takes over The Prestige at PGA West Lead

LA QUINTA, CA (February 21, 2017) -- 9th ranked LSU turned in the round of the tournament with a 6-under second round tally to reach 1-over and the 36-hole The Prestige at PGA West lead. With one round remaining first round co-leading No. 8 Stanford is in second place at 2-over, No. 15 San Diego State who led until late in the day and Iowa State are sharing third at 3-over while No. 7 Texas Tech and No. 11 Oklahoma are sharing fifth at 8-over. Leading the way through two days at the Greg Norman Course at PGA West for LSU is Eric Ricard. The senior has posted consecutive 1-under 70's and is tied for sixth. Ricard began his round on the opening hole and double-bogeyed the second hole before playing 3-under golf the rest of the way. LSU was also helped to the lead by sophomore's Sam Burns (-1) who is tied for 10th and Luis Gagne (E) who is part of a tie for 15th. The fourth Tiger score of day was turned in by early freshman enrollee Philip Barbaree. On Tuesday Barbaree shot an even-par 71 and through two days he is 4-over and tied for 31st. In the individual race Jared du Toit of Arizona State has surged in front. Using consecutive 4-under 67's du Toit moved to 8-under and maintained his spot atop the leaderboard. After beginning the day tied for the lead, du Toit birdied once on the front nine before finding his grove on the second nine with 10th, 12th, 13th and 17th hole birdies while only slipping up once with a 15th hole bogey. Du Toit, a senior and transfer from Idaho, is in search of his first win with the Sun Devils after winning three individual titles including the 2015 Big Sky Conference Championship with the Vandals. Behind du Toit in the medalist race is first round co-leader Franklin Huang (Stanford) at 6-under in second place, Nick Voke (Iowa State) and Nahum Mendoza III (San Diego State) are sharing third at 4-under while Sandy Scott (Texas Tech) is in fifth at 3-under. Other notable scores from the second round include Stanford's Maverick McNealy's 3-over 74 that dropped him to even-par overall and a tie for 15th. The long past week for Sahith Theegala might finally be catching up to him. In the second round the Pepperdine sophomore shot a 5-over 76 to fall into a tie for 27th at 3-over. Theegala's Pepperdine Waves were part of the first round lead but are now 9-over and tied for seventh.