COLUMBUS, Ga. - As the sun sets on day one of the Cougar Invitational in Columbus, Carson-Newman's Jonathan Nielsen leads the Eagles with his lowest round in his college career.

After rounds one and two, the Eagles tallied a total of 577. Nielsen's two-under performance on the day was good enough to land him in the fourth spot after two rounds, and the Carson-Newman group in sixth overall.

"Interesting start to the season for us. We struggled in the first round, but we were able to bounce back in the second round" said head coach Randy Wylie. "Really happy with Jonathan shooting his career low round today. Hopefully the first round was just getting some rust off after not competing as a team since last April. Tomorrow gives a great opportunity to move up the leaderboard against some fantastic teams."

The next closest Eagle to Nielsen in the rankings is 12th place Jake Mynatt. Mynatt was able to tally a 143 performance for three over par.

Freshman Elliot MacGregor's college debut saw him shoot a 148, good enough for eight over par. Tied with MacGregor in 38th was teammate Jackson Tyler, who competed as an individual. Will Collins was just one stroke behind the duo as he shot a 149.

Zach Young rounded out the scoring for Carson-Newman as finished the first two rounds with a total of 150 and tied for 51st.

The final round of the Cougar Invitational will begin with a 9:00 am shotgun start on Tuesday morning. Full stats and analystics from today along with live stats for tomorrow can be found on BirdieFire.