May 1, 2006

LAS VEGAS - The No. 15 ranked UNLV women's golf team was selected to play in the West Regional held May 11-13 at Washington National Golf Club in Las Auburn, Wash., the NCAA Division I women's golf committee announced this afternoon.

This will be the fourth-straight NCAA Regional appearance for the Rebels in the five-year history of the program and they will be the fifth seed in the tournament, which will be hosted by the University of Washington.

The Rebels are coming off their third-straight Mountain West Conference Championship, which they won by five strokes over No. 23 New Mexico in St. George, Utah, to earn the league's automatic regional bid. Da Sol Chung won the MWC individual title on her way to earning the league's player of the year and freshman of the year awards. The freshman's win at the conference championships was her first medalist honor of her short career.

Chung will be joined in the Rebel lineup by seniors Elena Kurokawa and Young Pak, junior Seema Sadekar and freshman Grace Woo. Kurokawa, Pak and Sadekar were all on the 2004 East Regional qualifying team that took second to Duke and advanced to the NCAA Championship as a team for the first time in school history.

UNLV is one of nine teams in the 21-team field that are currently ranked in the top 25 in Golfweek's latest rankings. Four teams from the top 10 are among the field, including Pac-10 champion No. 2 UCLA, No. 5 Georgia, Big-10 champion No. 8 Purdue and No. 10 Arkansas. The Lobos are also in the field, as well as BYU while Chelsea Benton of Colorado State will be competing as an individual.

The top eight teams and top two individuals not on qualifying teams from each regional advance to the NCAA Championships, scheduled for May 23-26 at Columbus, Ohio, on the Scarlet Course on the campus of Ohio State University.

West Regional The West regional will be played May 11-13 at the Washington National Golf Club, Las Auburn, Washington, hosted by the University of Washington. Conference automatic qualifiers are indicated in parenthesis next to the institution.

Teams:1. UCLA (Pacific-10 Conference)2. Georgia3. Purdue (Big Ten Conference)4. Arkansas5. UNLV (Mountain West Conference)6. Arizona7. Stanford8. New Mexico9. Washington10. Long Beach State11. Brigham Young12. UC Irvine (Big West Conference)13. San Jose State (Western Athletic Conference)14. Denver (Sun Belt Conference)15. Oregon State16. Washington State17. New Mexico State18. Georgia State (Colonial Athletic Association)19. Oral Roberts (Mid-Continent Conference)20. Bradley (Missouri Valley Conference)21. Montana (Big Sky Conference)

Individuals:1. Jessica Potter, San Francisco2. Renee Skidmore, Idaho3. Chelsea Benton, Colorado State