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By TOM ZEBOLD

USF Senior Writer

The Bulls found themselves on foreign ground Monday afternoon in Melbourne.

Christina Miller endured a lot of ups and downs through 36 holes at the Knights and Pirates Invitational to pull into a tie for ninth at 3 over, while the USF women's golf team is looking high up at the leaderboard for the first time this season in 10^th place with one more round to play at Suntree Country Club.

No. 42 USF has finished in the top six in each of its past eight tournaments and has a lot of work to do when it starts Tuesday's play at 33 over and 28 shots off leader Texas Tech.

"We have to use this to our advantage of being in a tough spot and having to come back," head coach Marci Kornegay said. "We haven't been in this situation where we've been at the bottom of the leaderboard yet, where we've had to fight and claw our way back to a respectable place."

The Bulls' lengthy day of competition got a little bit longer Monday afternoon when the team stayed on the course to work on putting problems that hampered them on the first day of the event that's being hosted by UCF and East Carolina.

"That's been pretty uncharacteristic of our team over the last couple of tournaments," Kornegay said. "We had lot of three putts and missing the low side of the hole. Those were things we worked on this afternoon."

Miller, ranked No. 13 in the country, showed a lot of heart in what turned out to be a crazy two rounds of golf. The sophomore posted nine bogeys and one double bogey, but she stayed in contention for another tournament title by grabbing eight birdies to get within eight shots of leader Deborah De Villa of No. 29 Texas Tech.  

"It was just one of those rollercoaster kinds of rounds for her," Kornegay said. "She had a bunch of bogeys and she followed that up with a birdie and then made a par. It was just this viscous cycle."

One very positive sign for Miller was her ability to put together a strong day of putting with Kornegay encouraging her to stay patient.

"She had a bunch of good looks at birdies and that's just what she has to capitalize on going into tomorrow she can give herself opportunities," Kornegay said. "She was putting a lot better than she has and they'll fall in."

Tuesday's shotgun start is set for 8:30 a.m. and Kornegay is eager to see if the Bulls can dig deep and finish strong in the final round before the team competes at the Big East Championship in Celebration, Fla., April 22-24.

"Tomorrow is actually going to be a pretty important day for us overall," she said. "It's going to really set the tone of what we're able to do as far as coming out of a hole that we've dug for ourselves."

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