JV golfers lead at OPSU Invitational

     GUYMON, Okla. (Oct. 6) -- What could have easily turned into a disasterous round for Brad Aycock wound up a keeper Monday in the opening round of the Oklahoma Panhandle State Invitational. Aycock, a freshman from Durant, rebounded from a hard-luck start to fire a 67, taking the individual lead while helping the Cameron junior varsity to the team lead in the 11-team event.
     Cameron posted a combined team score of 289 and enters Tuesday's final round two strokes ahead of second-place Newman University. Panhandle State is third with a 296.
     Aycock's route to the top of the leaderboard took an immediate detour on Monday. After driving the green on the first hole, Aycock was forced to trudge back to the tee box when the original ball couldn't be found, despite coming to rest less than 10 yards from the green. His tee shot on the second hole then riccocheted off a tree and careened more than a 100 yards perpendicular to the fairway, winding up out of bounds.
     "It was something else," Cameron head coach Jerry Hrnciar said of Aycock's shaky start. "After he finished the first hole, I went over to the green to see if I could find his first tee shot. I'm standing there near the edge of the green looking around and I look straight down and see a little spot of white and it's his ball. The thing plugged all the way into the ground and only a small part of the ball was even visible.
     "Then he gets that crazy bounce off the tree on the second hole and I thought he was really going to be in trouble," Hrnciar added.
     But Aycock kept it together and caught fire on the back nine, birdieing seven of the final nine holes to card the improbable 67. Aycock's score could have been even better, Hrnciar said, if not for two missed puts on the back nine that could have easily given Aycock a round of 65.
     The effort was still good enough for the overall individual lead, however. Aycock enters Tuesday's final round with a one-stroke advantage over Newman's Derek Harrison. Panhandle State's Mark Campbell was third with a round of 70, while Cameron's Dusty Isabell lurks one stroke back in fourth with a 71.
     Other Cameron scores included Nic Ware's 74, J.J. Russell's 77 and a 78 from Scott Watson.
     Final-round action in the 36-hole event is scheduled for Tuesday morning at the Sunset Hills Golf Course in Guymon.