UNIVERSAL CITY, Texas --- Biola closed out its season with one last opportunity to reach the NAIA National Championship in Daytona Beach, Florida, but it fell short with a sixth place finish at the Unaffiliated Conference Men's Golf Championship at Olympia Hills Golf Course on Tuesday.
 
The Eagles placed sixth of six teams in a tournament that resulted in the winner earning an automatic berth in the national tournament. It was a tournament that saw each of the six teams suffer setback in the third and final round in very difficult conditions.

"The whole tournament experience was a bit of a whirlwind," said Men's Golf Coach Hank Woodrome. "We went and competed and did the best we could do. It was tough with only four guys, and the wind really picked up and made things tough on day two."
 
Each of the six teams shot its worst round of the tournament on day two, and it resulted in a scoring differential of +79 between the six teams' second and third round scores.
 
The eventual team winner was the University of St. Thomas Celts, a Texas-based Catholic University. The Celts punched their tickets to Daytona Beach with a 938 (+74) team finish.
 
The Eagles' last place finish saw them shoot a combined three-round tally of 1,059 (+195). William Langworthy led the team with three solid rounds in the low-80s. He actually dropped his scoring from round to round as he began with a first-round 84, followed by an 83 and 80. His 80 in the third round tied him for the best score of that day. He finished in a tie for 13^th overall with his 31-over output.

The individual tournament winner also came from St. Thomas, as the Celts had two of the top-three golfers on the course. Richard Le paced the field with his first two rounds in the low-70s and a final round 81 (+9). He shot a 225 (+9) to finish 78 strokes ahead of the last-place finisher, a very wide margin of scoring considering the relatively small 29-man field.
 
Biola sent just four men out for its three rounds of golf, and it got two top-20 finishes and two in the bottom third of the field.
 
Lucas Kinan followed Langworthy with a 17^th place finish. He actually shot one of the best rounds of the tournament with a second-round 76 (+4). That round was the second-best tally of the afternoon on day one and put Kinan in a solid spot following a first-round 83. Unfortunately, a rough round three left him out of contention with a total tally of 251 (+35).
 
Max Allen and Kevin Vandekamp both had trouble getting going, and never saw themselves in contention as they both finished worse than 25^th. Allen's best round came on the first day as he posted an 84 in the opening round, but each round following he saw his score get progressively larger.
 
Langworthy did most of his work on the lengthier holes, as he ranked among the top-15 golfers in scoring average on pa- fours and par-fives. He also had the fourth-most birdies in the tournament field (8). Kinan, conversely, was a wizard on the short holes, averaging a 3.58 on par-threes to find himself as the eighth-best on such holes throughout the tournament. Kinan's model was consistency, as he had the third-most pars in the tournament (30).
 
The Eagles' season comes to a close with the latest finish, and Langworthy and Kinan end the year as Biola's scoring leaders. Langworthy averaged an 80.62 over his 21 rounds this season and Kinan finished with a mean score of 82.14, also over 21 rounds. They are the only two golfers to finish all tournament rounds this season.