WINTER GARDEN, Fla. – The No. 1 University of North Georgia men's golf team completed its second round of competition in the 2024 National Championship at Orange County National Golf Center Wednesday morning. 

After finishing day one a two-under-par, the Nighthawks struggled to replicate the same scoring on Wednesday, posting a seven-over performance. They now sit in a tie for 11th place at five-over for the tournament.

Only one UNG golfer, graduate student Jack Vajda, succeeded in staying at even par on the day. Vajda used three birdies on the back nine to shoot a 71 on Wednesday, after posting a three-over 74 in his opening round.

"He never panics, he's a pretty laid back, solid guy," said head coach Bryson Worley on Vajda's improvement Wednesday. "This is his first national championship… Jack does what he does best and settles down and ends up getting in the house at even par." 

Vajda currently sits at three-over in total for the tournament. He's joined by fellow grad student Will Chambless at three shots over after Chambless shot a 76 to close out the round for UNG on day two. 

Junior Myles Jones currently holds the best score of any Nighthawk golfer. He carded a two-over 73 on Wednesday, which puts him at T37 on the individual leaderboard at two-over for the championship. 

Myles ended Wednesday's round in good spirits after collecting birdies at the par-5 14th and par-4 18th to finish the round.  

Juniors Hughes Threlkeld and Ethan Day rounded out UNG's scoring with four-over and one-over rounds respectively. Day did a nice job bouncing back from a bogey at 16 by recording a birdie at the difficult par-5 17th hole just before ending his round. 

While Threlkeld struggled on the day, he also dropped a birdie at 17 and sits at T46 on the leaderboard currently. 

"This is a really good golf team and really a solid group of guys," said Worley. "I'm really proud of how they kept clawing back and righting the ship a little bit." 

The Nighthawks are back in action tomorrow, Thursday, May 23 with tee times beginning at 10:15 a.m. 

"Just do what we do, be confident in who we are. Tomorrow is an entirely different day and we just have to go out and trust what we're doing," said Worley when looking towards tomorrow's final round of stroke play. "We're definitely good enough to get into bracket play and I feel confident that these guys will be up to the task."

UNG needs to climb four spots to finish in the top-8 of the 20-team field and qualify for the bracket play stage of the National Championship.