SANTA ROSA, Calif. --- Biola Men's Golf traveled up north to Santa Rosa, California on Monday for its first competition of the 2017-18 season. After settling in the middle of the pack after the first round at the Sonoma State Invitational, the Eagles dropped off a bit in the second round and concluded day one in 12th place out of 13 teams.

The field was comprised of 11 NCAA Division II teams and two former peers from the Golden State Athletic Conference in Menlo College and William Jessup University. The Eagles finished ahead of both GSAC teams and two PacWest teams after the first round on Monday.

"The course we are playing does not leave much room for error," said Head Coach Max Allen. "These are probably the fastest and most slopped greens we have ever played on. If you are chipping or putting from above the hole it will take at least 3 shots to get it in."

Austin Bishop led the way with a 77 on the first play-through and the Eagles' team total of 319 landed them in 8th place. Cameron Bauer and Parker Buck also turned in good first rounds with scores of 81 and 79, respectively.

The Eagles sank four of their six birdies on the day in the first round but only saw Bauer improve on his score after the second round. Bauer shaved two strokes off his first round score by carding a 79. 

:We can talk about a number of contributors to the higher scores but there are no excuses," said Allen. "We didn't execute some basics. It won't be for nothing though. We're treating this as an evaluation to see where the holes are and it's going to fuel our refinement."

After two rounds, Biola sits at a 656 total and is nine strokes behind the team one place ahead of them, Academy of Art University. Bauer moved up three spots on the leaderboard into a tie for 34th with his second round performance. He leads the Eagles on the leaderboard headed into Friday.

Round three is scheduled to begin at the 8:30 a.m. tee-time on Tuesday.