Feb. 25, 2004

Complete Results

TUCSON, Ariz. - The UNLV women's golf team placed three individuals in the top 20 and shot a final-round 296 to finish in fifth place at the Wildcat Invitational on Wednesday.

The Rebels held down the No. 5 spot on the leaderboard from wire-to-wire and defeated four top-25 teams in the process.

"This is a great start to the spring for us because we beat some top-ranked teams," UNLV head coach Missy Ringler said. "This field is very similar to what we could see in a regional, so to play well is reassuring."

Among the teams UNLV defeated head-to-head were No. 3 Arizona, No. 19 Pepperdine, No. 22 Tennessee and No. 25 Stanford. And all four of the teams to finish ahead of the Rebels were ranked in the top 11.

Atop the pack of those teams was Vanderbilt, which won the event with a three-round total of 869, 17-over par.

The Commodores also turned out the individual winner, May Wood. Wood shot a tournament best 69 on the final day to claim a three-stroke win over Cal' Sophia Sheridan.

Top honors among the Rebels' squad went to sophomore Sunny Oh. Oh shot 72 in the final round to move to nine-over par and finish tied for 15th overall.

Matching Oh's 72 was Hwanhee Lee. After struggling in the opening round with an 82, Lee shot 72 in both of her next two rounds to climb all the way to 20th place.

Sophomore Elena Kurokawa, who had paced UNLV through the first two rounds of play, rounded out the tourney with a 77 to finish 11-over par. She placed 17th.

Seema Sadekar threw a 75 into the Rebels' final-day team total. She finished tied for 28th place at 15-over par.

Rounding out the Rebels' team were Young Pak, who shot 82 to finish in 56th, and Christine Hentzner, whose 84 tied her for 70th place. Pak's score did not count toward the team total, and Hentzner played the event as an individual.

The Rebels return to the road next week to compete in the Spartan Invitational in Salinas, Calif., on March 2-3.