May 19, 2004

OPELIKA, Ala. - The No. 14 UNLV women's golf team trimmed nine strokes off its opening round total, shooting a team 299 in the second round of the NCAA Women's Golf Championship on Wednesday.

The Rebels showed improved play throughout the lineup, but did not make much of a move on the leaderboard. Presently, UNLV sits in 23rd place, but 12 teams are still on the course after a lightning delay suspended play at 5:45 p.m. CDT.

"We improved out there today, but we still are making too many three-putts," head coach Missy Ringler said. "We worked on our putting and will focus on that tomorrow so we can get our score closer to par."

Weather permitting, the second round of play will be completed on Thursday morning, with play beginning at 7 a.m. at the par-72, 6,215-yard Grand National Lake Course.

Leading the Rebels on Wednesday was sophomore Elena Kurokawa. Kurokawa shot a one-over-par 73 and, combined with her opening round of 74, now sits at three-over par.

Also at three-over for the Rebels is sophomore Sunny Oh. Oh birdied her last hole to shoot 75 on Wednesday.

Freshman Seema Sadekar also pitched in a 75, rebounding strongly from an 84 in the opening round and making up the nine team strokes from Day One. She double-bogeyed holes 4 and 5, but played the rest of the course at one-under.

Rounding out the team score was a 76 from Hwanhee Lee. Young Pak improved six shots from the first day, but discarded a 79.

UCLA and Duke moved to the top of the team leaderboard. Both schools completed their second round in the morning and finished the day under par. UCLA is five-under and leads the top-ranked Blue Devils by a single stroke.

Individually, the Bruins' Susie Matthews overtook the top spot. She shot 69 on the day to move to four-under for the tourney.

Complete daily results and updated tee times once they are assigned can be found online at golfstat.com (http://www.golfstatresults.com/public/index.cfm?tournament_id=389)