April 30, 2007
LAS VEGAS - The UNLV women's golf team earned a spot in the NCAA West Regional, which will be held May 10-12 at Entrada at Snow Canyon Golf Club in St. George, Utah, the NCAA Division I women's golf committee announced this afternoon.
This will be the fifth-straight NCAA Regional appearance for the Rebels in the six-year history of the program and they will be the 11th seed in the tournament, which will be hosted by the BYU. UNLV's highest finish in a NCAA Regional tournament came in 2004, when the Rebels finished second in the East Regional to Duke.
The Rebels should feel right at home playing on the Entrada course, as it was the same course they were at less than two weeks ago for the Mountain West Conference Championships, which was won by TCU. The Horned Frogs snapped the Rebels' string of three-straight MWC team titles.
Leading the way for the Rebels at the MWC Championships was freshman Natasha Krishna, who finished her first league tournament tied for fourth on her way to earning All-MWC honors as well.
Krishna will be joined in the Rebel lineup by senior Seema Sadekar, sophomores Kasi Lee and Nicole McGirr and freshman Melissa Mabanta. Sadekar is the only Rebel in the lineup to have played in a NCAA Regional tournament. It was also announced today that sophomore Da Sol Chung has left the team to focus solely on academics at UNLV.
UNLV is one of three teams from the Mountain West Conference in the West Regional, joining host BYU and New Mexico in the 21-team field. The field also features six teams in Golfweek's latest top 25, including No. 1 Arizona State, No. 4 Pepperdine, No. 8 Florida, No. 10 Oklahoma State, No. 11 Stanford, No. 16 BYU and No. 22 Denver.
The top eight teams and top two individuals not on qualifying teams from each regional advance to the NCAA Championships, scheduled for May 22-25 at the LPGA International Legends Course in Daytona Beach, Fla. The championships hosted by the University of Central Florida and the Central Florida Sports Commission.
NCAA West Regional
The West regional will be played May 10-12 at the Entrada at Snow Canyon Country Club, St. George, Utah, hosted by the Brigham Young University. Conference automatic qualifiers are indicated in parenthesis next to the institution.
Teams:
1. Arizona State (Pacific-10 Conference)2. Pepperdine3. Florida4. Oklahoma State5. Brigham Young6. Stanford7. Denver (Sun Belt Conference)8. New Mexico9. UC Irvine (Big West Conference)10. San Jose State11. UNLV 12. San Francisco13. Hawaii14. California15. Idaho (Western Athletic Conference)16. Washington State17. Campbell (Atlantic Sun Conference)18. Nebraska19. Memphis (Conference USA)20. Sacramento State (Big Sky Conference)21. Columbia-Barnard (Ivy Group)
Individuals:
1. Kay Hoey, Long Beach State2. Jennifer Shipley, Fresno State3. Lehua Wise, New Mexico State
