It was a tale of two rounds.

Bowling Green’s men’s golf team finished in 10th place at the Xavier Invitational in Loveland, Ohio marking the fourth consecutive time the team has placed in the top 10. However, their average play in the first round may have cost them a higher finish.

Senior and captain Jace Walker continued his stellar play placing in the top 10 individually once again.

BG finished with a score of four under par placing them in 10th place out of 20 teams. The competition included Marquette, New Orleans, Eastern Kentucky University, who has proved to be a thorn in BG’s side, as well as Mid-American Conference rival Akron.

The overall sentiment among the team was that they played very average.

“We played well today,” said Head Coach Garry Winger. “But we feel we could have done a lot better.”

This was BG’s first invitational in two weeks, marking the longest time in between tournaments this year.

“We all did our own thing with practicing,” said Andrew Ladwig, who carded a 173 (73-70) and placed in 27th after the first day.

“Golf is an individual game,” Winger said. “Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses.”

Strong performances came from Bowling Green native John Powers and Matt Schneider.

Powers finished with a score of one under par but wasn’t too excited by his or the team’s play.

“We really struggled yesterday (first day of tournament),” Powers said. “But we can build on this for the next tournament.”

While Schneider finished the day off with a score of 69, which was four under par.

How the course sets up for the team is always an important factor on whether or not they can be successful.

“There were a lot of birdies out there,” Powers said. “It puts more pressure on us to keep up with the leaders.”

Coach Winger agrees that the team had a difficult time keeping up with the field.

“We saw 12 par fives in three days,” Winger said. “We have to get eight, nine, or 10 under to stay in the game.”

The team can look to improve when they travel to Hopkinsville, Ky. for the Austin Peay Invitational. Although, they will have to wait three weeks, the tournament is not until October 22-23.

“We’re going to take a few days off for fall break,” Winger said. “Then go back to work.”

“Golf is so unique to any other sport,” Winger said. “Golfers can practice on their own a lot.”

Coach Winger feels his team has a lot more to prove.

“We still haven’t seen our best yet,” Winger said. “This is a good golf team.”