March 23, 2004
Complete Results
AUSTIN, Texas - After holding down the runner-up slot on the leaderboard over the first two rounds, the No. 22 UNLV women's golf team shot a final-round 323 on Tuesday and slipped to fifth place at the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational.
Despite the slip, the Rebels still managed to defeat four teams ranked ahead of them in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index.
"We are disappointed in our play today," UNLV head coach Missy Ringler said. "We gave ourselves a chance to win the tournament, and we let the challenge and our emotions get to us. However, we finished the tournament in fifth place and we are happy with that."
The Rebels finished at 86-over par at the par-72, 6,248-yard Hills Country Club. No. 11 Vanderbilt shot 303 in its final round, the best score of the day, to supplant Texas atop the leaderboard. The Commodores finished at 71-over par, two strokes better than the hosts, which had led following both of the first two rounds.
Also moving ahead of the Rebels were No. 4 California and No. 11 Southern California. UNLV finished fifth, defeating Southern Methodist, Purdue, No. 20 North Carolina, No. 7 Arizona, No. 16 Oklahoma and No. 13 Tulsa, among others.
"This was a postseason-type field with eight teams ranked in the top 20. We will learn from this experience in our remaining tournaments this spring and continue to improve."
Sophomore All-American Sunny Oh did her part in the Rebels' efforts, finishing tied for fourth overall. Oh shot round of 75, 78, and 77 to finish at 14-over par, just four strokes behind medallist Chris Brady of Vanderbilt.
In addition to Oh's 77, the Rebels also counted a 78 by Hwanhee Lee, an 83 from Seema Sadekar, and one of the two 85s shot by Elena Kurokawa and Young Pak. Lee and Kurokawa finished tied for 29th place at 25-over, followed by Sadekar in 39th and Pak in 63rd.
The Rebels' finish at the Betsy Rawls marks the third straight top-five team finish to open the spring. They will take a well-earned week of rest before returning to the links on April 5-6 when they compete in the BYU Dixie Classic in St. George, Utah.
