UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. – Three Vandals sit in the top three and Idaho (558, - 10) carries a seven-stroke lead over a strong field at the Redhawk Invitational at Chambers Bay, hosted by Seattle U.
 
Colt Sherrell hit a five-under 66 in round one and followed it up with a one-over 72 in round two to sit alone in second place, three shots back of the lead with round to play.  
 
Jose Suryadinata was three-over in the first round, but battled back in the second with a 66 to move into a tie for third with freshman Sam Johnson who played steady golf, putting up back-to-back rounds of one-under 70.
 
Sophomore Matt McGann had an outstanding second round of three-under 68 to sit at one-over for the tournament to tie for 13th-place after two rounds.
 
Joe Sykes wad one-over in the first round, but was five-over in the second round to tie for 41st to wrap up the scoring for the starting lineup for Idaho.
 
TJ Patterson, golfing as an independent, sits at 14-over to tie for 87th-place.
 
"I was pleased to see our hard work paying off," head coach David Nuhn said. "We have worked relentlessly and to give our guys the right mindset. We played the way we expect to play when we are playing well. We know we can do it, but we showed it today. We have to prove that again tomorrow, but we are in a good spot, and we have to go out and do it again for the final round."
 
The Vandals finished the first round with a three-stroke lead for first place after combining for a two-under 282. Idaho built on the lead for the second round score of eight-under 276.
 
Big Sky opponent Northern Colorado is second at three-under on the strong second-round performance of Yuze Zhang who shot six-under, including a hole-in-one. The Vandals sit 17 strokes ahead of host Seattle U, 19 strokes ahead of Oregon State and 21 strokes ahead of Michigan State, the other three teams in Idaho's foursome, Monday.
 
Idaho played in the lead group for the first two rounds and earned the right to play in the lead group for Tuesday's final round. Nuhn said the Vandals embraced the challenge of playing with a Big Ten team and a Pac-12 team along with tournament host.
 
"We are always searching for a little bit of respect and legitimacy, to show that we can play with the best," Nuhn said. "There is a chip on our shoulder and we are hungry to say that we came to compete and came to win."
 
One round remains in the tournament with the shotgun start scheduled for 8 a.m. Live scoring is available via BirdieFire.com.