PALM DESERT, Calif. --- Friday's final round of the Augustana Spring Fling became a dress rehearsal of sorts for the Biola Eagles in preparation for the PacWest Golf Championship in about five weeks time.

The Eagles found themselves in a position to win and needing to keep pace with another conference program in Point Loma and improved upon their play from Thursday with a team score of 320. That's a nice first step toward playing at their peak come championship despite not winning this week's tournament, as the Sea Lions beat two ranked teams to take the Spring Fling with a score of 627.

Head Coach Jane Carr's group had a number of good closing performances on Friday that helped Biola stay in the upper half of the leaderboard. While four women finished in the top-25 on the field, Jules Loibl and Sami Penor stood out with the Eagles' two scores in the 70's.

Loibl basically had the best start out of everyone at the Desert Willow Golf Resort on the day, distinguishing herself as the only woman to go under-par on the front nine. With a birdie on hole 12, Loibl was even through 12 holes and carded a 76 to vault herself up 10 spots and into a tie for fifth place. That makes three top-five finishes for the Jamul, California-native this season after she accomplished the feat four times last year.

"Jules is a steady force on this team and she really had an amazing day out there today," said Coach Carr. "Even after a double on hole 11, Jules managed to be even par walking to the 13th tee box, but 4 bogies in her final 6 holes left her with a 76 for the day. Jules is a player that is bound to finish a round under-par before the end of her time at Biola. She continues to maintain the number one spot for the Eagles and once again grabbed a top-10 finish to earn herself an automatic seed to the Sonoma State tournament."

Penor had the field's second-best round score on the second play-through with a 74 that was marked by three birdies on the back nine. Penor jumped from 44th place to 19th on Friday after going two-under on the five par-five holes on the course and closing extremely well. Penor only had one bogey over her final eight holes and finished the round with two birdies to record her best round since October 1, 2018.

"In Sami's opening two holes she went birdie, birdie, and I could see the intense determination in her those opening holes," said Coach Carr. "I really wouldn't have expected anything less from her. I knew she was disappointed yesterda.  About half way through yesterdays round I told her, 'this is why you have a team. Today isn't your day, but learn the course and take it all in so that tomorrow can be somebody else's bad day'. Sami really came through today. She has a very competitive spirit and I am so proud of the resilience she showed in this tournament."

Behind Loibl and Penor, Marcel Manalo and Rachel Reynolds, who played as an individual, also finished in the top-25 of the leaderboard. Reynolds matched Penor with a 39 over her first nine holes while Manalo needed just 40 strokes to complete the front nine.

That helped Biola finish in fifth place out of 10 teams, one rank higher than the Eagles' place at the 2018 Augustana Spring Fling.

"Unfortunately we just couldn't seem to get a third or fourth score to support Sami and Jules today," added Carr. "Every girl in the lineup is capable of shooting in the 70's which makes tournaments like this one a bit frustrating. We only have one tournament remaining before our PacWest Conference Championship and we need to get back to consistent scoring.  Being in the middle of an academic term is always challenging, but I know these girls want to finish the season like they started it. Our sights are set on bringing home a conference championship at the end of April and we know we are capable of doing it."

Biola will take a few weeks to prepare for its final two tournaments of the season. Up first is the Sonoma State Spring Invitational held in Santa Rosa, California from April 8-9.