Rice Leads Pacific Invitational Field

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA (November 4, 2008) Rice junior golfer Michael Buttacavoli was three-under par on the back nine, shot a 67 and is atop the individual leaderboard as the Owls grabbed the team lead at the Stockton Sports Commission Pacific Invitational Tuesday.

Rice shot a 283 team score (one-under par) for the second straight round, and at two under through 36 holes (566 team score), will open Wednesday's final round with a four-stroke lead over Oregon which is second. Both No. 49 Kansas State and Fresno State are tied for third with two-round scores of 571.

Opening Tuesday's round one-under par, Buttacavoli equaled a career best in shooting his 67. It tied for the fifth-best 18-hole score at Rice since 1985. The Miami Beach, Fla., native carded four birdies and no bogeys during his round. He shares the second-round lead with Pacific?s T.J. Bordeaux.

"It was just a really steady round for him," Rice golf coach Drew Scott said of Buttacavoli's round.

Scott said Buttacavoli really got his round going when he drove the green on the par-four, sixth hole and had a shot lip out that would have given him an eagle.

"He made a couple good saves, including on No. 9 then turned it up on the back nine. Michael only has one blemish on his scorecard for two rounds. He has played extremely steady and it was a nice, solid 67 today."

Christopher Brown, Michael Whitehead and Robert Burrow are all in the Top 20 after two rounds.

Brown shot an even-par 71, rebounding from back-to-back bogeys on the front nine and has a two-round score of 143 (+1) and shares 13th place. Burrow has a two-round score of 144 (+2) and is tied for 17th while Whitehead fell to 20th with a 145 (+1). Whitehead began the day tied for second but shot a 76 on Tuesday.

The Owls? fifth golfer, Kyle Kelley, figured into the Owls? scoring Tuesday. He birdied the 15th and 18th holes to finish with a two-over par 73.

"Everybody picked up the slack,? Scott said. ?It was wonderful for Kyle Kelley to come back from a not so nice round yesterday to contribute today. For us to be leading right now, has taken an entire team effort. We have been fortunate to have solid play this week."

Rice will be paired with Oregon and Kansas State for Wednesday's final round. The Owls will begin teeing off at 11:10 a.m. Central Time. Live statistics will be available at Golfstat.com.