Killeen closing in on first career win

First round co-leader Giulia Sergas is two shots back.
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- The ball bounced the right way for Denise Killeen on Saturday. Now, she is in the running for her first LPGA title.
In the second round of the ShopRite LGPA Classic, Killeen birdied the 337-yard par-4 17th hole with a shot that looked as if it came from a miniature golf game.
Deep in the fairway rough after her tee shot, Killeen used a pitching wedge to loft a high-arching shot that dropped near the back of the green. The ball seemed to catch on the fringe cut, following it in a semicircle before rolling downhill and coming to rest 3 feet from the pin.
She hit the birdie putt, picked up another birdie on the 18th and finished with a 6-under 65, taking a two-shot lead into the final round.
"Once those good things start to happen, you try to build on them," she said.
Winless in 12 years on the tour, Killeen was at 12 under heading into today. First-round co-leader Giulia Sergas was two shots back, while Cristie Kerr and 17-year-old amateur Paula Creamer were also in contention, four shots off the lead.
Different directions
Killeen, of Marietta, Ga., played error-free golf while playing partner Sergas birdied three of their first four holes, taking a two-shot lead.
After shooting even par for five holes, Killeen made short putts for birdie on the sixth and eighth holes, and then finished with a flourish. She birdied the last four holes for a two-day total of 130, tying the Classic record for 36 holes. She had the same score in Friday's opening round.
Once she'd made the birdie at No. 17, she picked up another stroke on the 18th, landing her second shot on the green of the 508-yard hole and two-putting for another birdie.
She wasn't worried about her tendency to start slowly.
"I knew eventually I would start to hit a little better, which I did, and then I started to hit it bad again in the middle and made a lot of good up-and-downs and finished very well," Killeen said.
Finishing well hasn't been her strong point.
Since joining the tour in 1992, Killeen has never finished better than a tie for fourth. She has missed the cut in four of 10 events this year. But on Saturday, she had her own rooting section -- 6-year-old son, Drew, and 4-year-old daughter, Kaleigh.
"My 6-year-old, this is the first day he wanted to come out and watch me," Killeen said.
Sergas, of Trieste, Italy, used a deft touch with her pitching wedge to set up birdie putts of 3 feet on No. 2 and 9 feet on No. 4.
A pair of bogeys -- she drove into the rough on the eighth hole and three-putted the 12th green -- set her back, but she bounced back with two more birdies after that.
She, too, was optimistic about her chances for her first LPGA title.
"I feel really calm. I usually get nervous, like my heart beats really fast. I don't know, [it's] surprising, I'm really calm. And I just want to play," Sergas said.
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