SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — Biola Women's Golf had a return to form in a massive way on Monday, shooting a 306 during round two of the Westminster Wasatch Invitational at Glenmoor Golf Course.
Head Coach Jane Carr's team dropped a whopping 16 strokes from their day one tally of 322 and moved up from ninth-place to sixth-place on the tournament team leaderboard.
"Certainly today was a much better day for us as a team," said Carr. "Brady and Madison were anchors for us, but we know we need a strong 3rd and 4th score to continue moving up the leader board."
The tournament field as a whole shot just a tiny bit better on this second day, with an average round of 80.66 on day one dropping to 80.46 on day two, but no other team improved its scoring by as much as BU. Texas A&M International and Dominican came closest to matching Biola's improvement as the Dustdevils and Penguins each shaved off 13 strokes on Monday. Interestingly, five of the 12 tournament teams saw their score go up in the second 18 holes.
All of the Eagles' five contributing golfers either matched or improved upon their round one score. Madison Voisard was the biggest mover as she dropped from a 79 yesterday to an even-par score of 72 on Tuesday. Voisard is leading the Eagles through two rounds, sitting in 10th place overall with a 151 (+7).
Through 36 holes, Voisard has carded eight birdies to lead all tournament scorers in that category.
Coincidentally, it was Brady Turnquist who dropped the second-most strokes in this round. The Eagles' junior followed her round one 79 with a one-over score of 73. Voisard and Turnquist were a part of a group of just six golfers to score 73 or better on Monday. Turnquist turned in 13 pars and birdies on holes six and 15 to build her solid round.
The Eagles' team score for today was rounded out by an 80 from Rachel Shaw and an 81 from Melanie Reyes. Shaw's round two matched her day one tally, but it looked pretty different as she had no single score greater than one stroke above par.
Par-3 holes and Par-5 holes were friendly to Biola golfers. The Eagles had three golfers among the top-12 in par-3 scoring average and Brady Turnquist is tied for fifth in par-5 scoring average. She is one-under overall on par-5s through the first 36 holes.
"As a team we have only been together for four weeks, but I am encouraged by what I am seeing in these players," said Carr. "Tomorrow will be their fourth look at the course and they are determined to move up the leader board."
With one round left, Biola sits just seven strokes back of the current fifth-place team, Sonoma State. The Eagles are 15 strokes out of fourth-place (Texas A&M International). BU has an eight-stroke buffer on the team right on its tail, which is conference foe Academy of Art.
Round three is set for a shotgun start of 8:30 p.m. local time/7:30 a.m. pacific time.
