Sorrento, Fla. – Between two individuals in red numbers and a round at even par, the Florida women’s golf team climbed out of a three-way tie for ninth and into possession of a third-place tie Monday during second-round play at the UCF Challenge to benefit the Florida Children’s Hospital. Florida is 1-under par through two rounds with USC at the Red Tail Country Club, just three shots back of runner-up Purdue.

The Lady Gators posted the second-best collective score in the 18-team field and erased nine strokes from Sunday’s first-round tally of 292. Defending champion Duke maintained its lead as did Blue Devils sophomore, Alison Whitaker, sitting at 9-under par through two rounds of play.

“We just reviewed everyone’s round yesterday and assessed what went well and what needed work,” head coach Jill Briles-Hinton said. “We realized we played decent yesterday and other teams just played better. We figured we would go into today and play well, climb up the leaderboard and that’s what we did.”

Senior Tiffany Chudy (Miramar, Fla.) tied her career-low round with a 4-under par 68. An adventurous front nine in first-round action was exchanged for a consistent four-birdie effort with no bogeys as the reigning Lady Gator Invitational medalist honed in on improving from Monday.

“I had more confidence today and more belief that what I was doing was good and really stuck with it,” Chudy said. “I made a lot of really good putts today.”

Playing in front of family and friends, freshman Jessica Yadloczky (Casselberry, Fla.) found red numbers with a 2-under par 70. The round under par marked the second straight day she was at par or better. She is tied with Tennessee’s Marci Turner for 11th.

“I think we learned the course as we played yesterday,” Yadloczky said. “The wind was really bad during our practice round but we were able to get adjusted and were committed to all our shots. We want to come out even more committed tomorrow than we were today because if we stay mentally prepared and strong, we’ll score well.”

Fellow freshman Hannah Yun (Bradenton, Fla.) improved one stroke from her first-round score to pull to even par on Monday. She was able to cancel three bogeys with three birdies, two of the birdies coming from holes she also birdied on Sunday.

Senior Whitney Myers (East Berlin, Pa.) kept close to her first-day pace, finishing with a 73. Myers is tied with Yun and five others for 21st place and finished the last nine holes at 2-under par.

Redshirt junior Ornella Jouven (La Ciotat, France) completed a 14-stroke turnaround with a 1-over par 73. Jouven opened with back-to-back bogeys on the 10th hole but quickly found her rhythm, posting two birdies to finish her first nine and carded eight pars on her final nine holes.

Senior Eleanor Tucker (Wilson, N.C.), competing as an individual, fired a second-round score of 78, one stroke better than Sunday’s round of 79.

Florida wraps up the UCF Challenge Tuesday morning at 8:30 a.m. with another shotgun start. Live stats can be tracked at www.golfstat.com.

Florida Scoring

T11 - Jessica Yadloczky (72-70—142)

T13 - Tiffany Chudy (75-68—143)

T21 - Hannah Yun (73-72—145)

T21 - Whitney Myers (72-73—145)

T89 - Ornella Jouven (87-73—160)

T80 - Eleanor Tucker (79-78—157)*

*Competing as individual

Team Scoring

1 – Duke (282-282—564)

2 – Purdue (289-283—572)

T3 – USC (281-294—575)

T3 - Florida (292-283—575)

5 – UCLA (286-291—577)

T6 – Pepperdine (285-295—580)

T6 – Georgia (289-291—580)

8 – Alabama (294-287—581)

9 – Oklahoma State (286-296—582)

10 – Auburn (292-291—583)

11 – LSU (290-294—584)

T12 – Tennessee (293-298—591)

T12 – UCF (292-299—591)

14 – Arkansas (294-298—592)

15 – Florida State (304-294—598)

16 – Vanderbilt (302-297—599)

17 – New Mexico (295-310—605)

18 – Furman (307-299—606)