Staff report
East Rowan standout Nick Lyerly shot 4-under 66 at The Club at Irish Creek on Monday in Kannapolis and still wasn’t the first-round leader in a hotly contested Rowan Junior Open.
Concord’s Stephen Carroll shot 65 in the eighth annual Rowan Junior Open, for a one-shot lead at the halfway point.
Six players broke par.
Tournament action concludes today, starting at 8 a.m., with the venue moving to Warrior Golf Club in China Grove. The leaders will tee off at 9:44 a.m.
Waxhaw’s Cooper Daniel shot 67. Charlotte’s Louis Lambert and Walker Simas, last year’s runner-up, are in contention at 68. Candler’s Carson Ownbey shot 69.
Defending champion Logan Shuping, a rising senior at East Rowan and an East Carolina commitment, shot even-par 70 in the first round. Michael Childress, a Salisbury resident who is a rising sophomore at Cannon School, also shot 70.
Bryson Sprinkle, another East Rowan student, came in at 74.
There was a four-way tie for first in the 11-13 age group. Firing 73s were Abhay Gupta (Concord), Andrew Coward (Landis), Jack Hart (Charlotte) and Will Gray (Charlotte).
Mooresville’s Aiden McCall (40 for nine holes) has a three-stroke lead in the 8-10 age group.