Tripp Harris spent all of his freshman season at UTC trying to learn how to win golf tournaments. He didn’t win, but the lessons he learned while traveling with the Mocs are beginning to pay dividends.

Last month, Harris won the Ira Templeton Chattanooga Open in a playoff, beating some of Tennessee’s best club professionals and amateurs in the process. UTC coach Mark Guhne had been predicting for weeks that if his young charge ever broke into the winner’s circle, he’d be tough to deal with.

Guhne was right. Harris’ name has been a fixture on leaderboards all summer. He was at it again on Saturday in the second round of the Chattanooga Men’s Metro, vaulting into first place with a 6-under-par 65 at Signal Mountain. Harris’ two-day total of 136 is two shots ahead of Josh Lawson and first-round leader Taylor Lewis. Nick Blakely is next at 139. UTC’s Bryce Ledford, Southern Miss red-shirt freshman Paul Apyan, Pat Corey, Greg Privette and David Burris are bunched together at 140.

“Winning [the Chattanooga Open] was a huge boost for my confidence,” Harris said. “I’d been in position to win a lot of times, but never could get the job done. To finally do it meant a lot.”

After ripping apart a Signal Mountain course that played considerably tougher than the first round thanks to some trickier pin placements, Harris has once again given himself a chance to win. And if he plays anything close to the way he played Saturday, the battle in Sunday’s final round will be for second place.

Harris made eight birdies on Saturday, so many he had a hard time remembering them all as he recounted his round for the media. Were it not for a couple of front-nine bogeys, he might have run off and hidden from the rest of the field.

The key to Harris’ round was accuracy and length off the tee. That allowed him to hit a lot of wedges, and he capitalized by consistently hitting his approach shots to eight- to 10 feet. His birdies came at No. 1, 3, 7 and 9 on the front and 10, 12, 13 and 16 on the back.

“I putted really well today,” Harris said. “I gave myself a lot of good chances and I was able to take advantage. I might have had one long birdie putt, and I two putted for birdie twice. But the rest of them were from right around eight feet.”

Harris’ handiwork on the greens could be attributed to an uncharacteristically poor putting performance in last week’s Spirit of America Classic in Decatur, Ala. As soon as he returned home, Harris went directly to Creeks Bend and spent hours on the putting green.

“Tripp’s a good putter,” Guhne said. “Because he works at it. There aren’t many afternoons that you drive by Creeks Bend and don’t see him out there chipping and putting. When he has a good ball-striking round, he’s hard to beat.”

While Harris birdied almost half his holes on Saturday, first-round leader Lewis and Apyan, who shot a 67 and was in second place after Friday’s round, slipped back to the field a bit. Lewis shot a 1-over-72 and Apyan, who three-putted three times on the back nine, a 73.

“I was a little off on my distance control today,” Lewis said. “I just kept getting above the hole. The greens are just fast enough that you had to be too careful if you got it above the hole. I just never had a good look [at birdies].”

Larry McGill shot a closing 70 on Saturday to win the Senior Division by a shot over Ron Johnson.