WAIMEA, Hawai`i--- With the rising of the Hawaiian sun on Monday, competition began at the pinnacle of the PacWest Conference women's golf season. After 18 holes of intense competition amidst sustained 20-30 mile-per-hour winds, Head Coach Jane Carr's Eagles find themselves perched atop the leaderboard.

Biola scored a 318 on Monday to pace the field of seven teams as it seeks to win a second league title in the last three seasons. The 318 spots Biola a two-stroke advantage over Academy of Art and Hawaii Hilo, which both shot 320. It's tight at the top with five teams within seven strokes of the lead.

This year's tournament takes place at the gorgeous Mauna Lani golf club, giving the field picturesque views to go along with the blustering winds. 

It's the first time the PacWest Championship has been in Hawaii since 2020-21. The Eagles finished third overall the last time through the islands, and coach Carr and the team are eager to improve that standing this go around. Her team enters play as the highest-ranked team in the tournament field.

Today's effort marks the second time in its PacWest tenure that Biola has led the field through the first 18 holes. The last time was in the Eagles' title run back in 2020-21, where BU carded a day one total of 308. 

Illustrating just how challenging the weather was on Monday, the 318 was the highest day one score from a PacWest tournament leader since the very first PacWest Women's Golf Championship back in 2013. 

In that tournament, held at Mira Vista Golf & Country Club in El Cerrito, Calif., Grand Canyon University and Academy of Art tied for the tournament lead with day one scores of 325.

The average round from the 35 golfers in the field was just above an 82, a whole 10 strokes above par. All of Biola's four counting scores on Monday came in under the average of the field, explaining how BU managed to snag the lead.

A trio of Eagles tied for the teams' top score, which is a great sign of the consistency that can be expected from Biola as play continues for two more days. Brady Turnquist, Theresa Shaw and Melanie Reyes each came in at seven-over (79) to tie for fifth place in the tournament.

The trio combined for 32 even-par holes on the afternoon, which helped them keep their overall scores down. Each of the top-3 Biola golfers had some help from solid scores on some of the day's toughest holes in terms of the field's average score relative to par (9, 12, 16, 18). 

The performance on these critical holes made a three-stroke difference in Biola's overall score, which accounts for their lead at the end of the day. On that group of four holes, the Biola golfers combined to shoot just nine-over where the tournament average for those holes would be 12-over. 

Theresa Shaw managed a par on hole 12, which was by far the highest scoring hole of the day with an average score 1.2 strokes above par. She added a remarkable birdie on hole 18, which was the third-hardest hole for the field. 

Turnquist had no holes under par on Monday, but the Eagles' standout senior did finish with the second-most pars (12). Shaw and Reyes each finished with a pair of birdies to help them overcome some more difficult holes.

Biola's top scorers are just three strokes back from the individual tournament leader. Hawaii Pacific's Shuiyun He scored a 76 to pace the field.

The Eagles' fourth scorer is Rachel Shaw. Shaw had an 81 on this day. Over her first two years of PacWest play, Shaw has an average round of 80.3 over her PacWest Championship career (6 rounds). Last season, she shot a round one 86 before settling in and shooting 78 and 80 on days two and three. Look for her to surge up tomorrow. She began this week with a scoring average of 78.10. Shaw only had two holes more than one over par. The key to success for her on Tuesday will be finding more pars.

Karis Haltom will be the first to tee off for Biola on Tuesday. Haltom shot an 85 on day one. She begins play at 11:30 a.m. pacific time.

Follow the live scoring of the tournament at https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=28662