NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Fighting Illini seniors Adrien Dumont de Chassart and Tommy Kuhl combined to shoot 5-under during Round 2 at Yale Golf Course, but it was not enough to help the sixth-place Illini position themselves inside the cutline heading into the final round with only five spots available for teams to advance to the championship from the NCAA New Haven Regional. 

Kuhl was steady from the outset, opening his round with eight straight pars before a birdie on 18 moved him to 1-under. After the turn it was more of the same for the Morton, Ill., native, as he posted six additional pars and sandwiched his lone bogey of the round with a pair of birdies on Nos. 5 and 7, to jump 22 spots into a tie for 24^th on the individual leaderboard.

Things started a little more rocky for his classmate as Dumont de Chassart opened with a bogey on 10. Two holes later he moved to even with his first birdie of the day on 12, and following a tee shot that found the woods, and a clutch save for bogey on No. 17, he sat at 1-over. That's when the reigning two-time Big Ten Player of the Year hit his stride, however, playing bogey-free the rest of the way while notching four birdies – on Nos. 2, 4, 7 and 8 – to climb into a tie for sixth place with a 36-hole total of 136 (-4).

Round 1 leader Piercen Hunt was unable to maintain the form that produced a 6-under 64 on Monday, instead posting 6-over on Tuesday to move to even-par (140) one shot off Kuhl's pace. With the Illini dropping Hunt's score, junior Jerry Ji's 73 (+3) and freshman Jackson Buchanan's 74 (+4) rounded out the scoring in Round 2 for the Illini.

Overall, the No. 20 Illini are alone in sixth place with a two-round team score of 555 (-5), and enter Round 3 five strokes behind No. 8-ranked Texas Tech (-10) for the last advancing spot. No. 17 Wake Forest (-21) and No. 5 North Carolina (-20) are 1-2 atop the team leaderboard, while No. 39 North Florida and No. 49 Georgia Southern are tied for third at 12-under.  

The Illini will need to close the week with a strong performance on Wednesday in order to crack the top-five and maintain the program's streak of consecutive NCAA Championship berths. Under head coach Mike Small, Illinois has advanced through the regional round 15 times, including each of the last 13 dating back to 2008, a streak that ranks second nationally to Texas' 14.

Round 3 is set to begin with tee times on Wednesday starting at 7:30 a.m. ET/6:30 a.m. CT. The Illini, paired with Texas Tech and Georgia Southern will start on No. 10 beginning at 8 a.m. ET/7 a.m. CT. Live scoring is available throughout the tournament on Golfstat.com.

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