Junior Elijah Collins posted a career-best score of 70 on Friday to help the Forester men's golf team extend its lead to 15 shots after the second round of the three-day Midwest Conference Championship Tournament.
Collins began his round of 2-under with five consecutive pars before registering his first of four birdies on the day on the 558-yard, par-5 sixth hole. after dropping a shot at eight, he rebounded with another birdie on the 417-yard, par-4 ninth to make the turn a shot under par. He followed up a bogey on 11 with back-to-back birdies on the 393-yard, par-4 12th and 150-yard, par-3 13th and made par on each of the last five holes. The previous career-low round for Collins was a 75 at the Carthage Spring Invitational on April 24.
With a two-day score of 148, Collins is tied for second place in the 33-player field, two shots behind Lake Forest senior Davis DeKorte, the league's defending individual champion. After posting a score of 72 on Friday, DeKorte carded a 74 in round two. He was a shot over par before registering his first birdie of the day on the 397-yard, par-4 10th. He added another on the 525-yard, par-5 16th, his second in as many days, and completed the tournament's two days in 146 shots, tying the second-lowest 36-hole performance in program history.
Forester sophomore Jacob Krugman leads all players with 28 pars after two days and is tied-for-seventh in the standings after a score of 78 on Friday. His second round included a run of eight straight pars starting on hole four and his 36-hole total stands at 153.
Junior Ricky Schmidt was a shot better than Krugman on Friday but trails him by two overall. He birdied the 392-yard, par-4 second while going out in 37. He began the back nine with another birdie before a pair of double-bogeys hurt him down the stretch.
Sophomore Austin Aksoy gave the Foresters a fifth round in the 70s for the second day in a row when he finished Friday with a 79. Senior Durham Ghelfi finished with an 85 and joined Aksoy as the only players in Friday's round with birdies on the 169-yard, par-3 eighth hole. Aksoy is in 17th place with a two-day score of 161 while Ghelfi is tied for 19th at 164.
With a four-man score of 299 on Friday, Lake Forest was 14 shots better than other team in the league. It was also the Foresters' second-lowest round since the program returned to varsity status in 2014 and their 36-hole score of 602 is a school record. Knox College is second in the standings at 617, a shot ahead of Illinois College. Monmouth College is fourth at 638 and St. Norbert College is two strokes back. Grinnell College has just three players at the event and will not factor in the team standings.
Saturday's final round at Aldeen Golf Club in Rockford, Illinois, will begin at 10:00 a.m. Lake Forest players will begin teeing off at 10:48.
