April 28, 2008
LAS VEGAS - The UNLV women's golf team is headed to the NCAA West Regional, which will be held May 8-10 at Lincoln Hills Golf Club in Sacramento, Calif., the NCAA Division I women's golf committee announced this afternoon.
This will be the sixth-straight NCAA Regional appearance for the Rebels in the seven-year history of the program, all of which have come with Missy Ringler as their head coach, and UNLV will be the 16th seed in the tournament. UNLV's highest finish in a NCAA Regional tournament came in 2004, when the Rebels finished second in the East Regional to Duke.
"I think we are in the best regional as far as how the teams were broken up into each region," UNLV head coach Missy Ringler said. "We are playing our best golf right now late in the spring, and it can only help that we have already played a tournament at that course."
The Rebels are familiar with the course, as they played there less than a month ago at the Sacramento State Invitational, where UNLV tied for fourth overall. Sophomore Natasha Krishna paced UNLV, finishing fifth with a three-round score of 219 (+3) on the par-72 course.
Krishna will be joined in the Rebel lineup by the reigning Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year, Therese Koelbaek, who led the MWC in scoring average this season with a 73.96 and earned four top-five finishes, including winning the USF/Richmond Country Club Invitational. Koelbaek and Krishna were both named to the All-MWC squad, and it was the second-straight time that Krishna earned a spot on the squad.
Those two will be joined in the Rebel lineup by senior Tonya Choate, junior Kasi Lee and freshman Alejandra Guacaneme.
UNLV is one of two teams from the Mountain West Conference in the West Regional, joining BYU in the 21-team field. The field also features eight teams in Golfweek's latest top 25, including No. 1 USC, No. 5 Arizona State, No. 7 Oklahoma State, No. 9 Arkansas, No. 13 Arizona, No. 17 Michigan Sate, No. 22 Cal and No. 25 Stanford.
The top eight teams and top two individuals not on qualifying teams from each regional advance to the NCAA Championships, scheduled for May 20-23 at the Championship Course in Albuquerque, N.M.
West Regional
The West regional will be played May 8-10 at the Lincoln Hills Golf Club, Lincoln, California, hosted by Sacramento State University. Conference automatic qualifiers are indicated in parenthesis next to the institution.
Teams:
1. USC (Pacific-10 Conference)2. Arizona State3. Arkansas4. Arizona5. Oklahoma State (Big 12 Conference)6. California7. Michigan State8. Stanford9. BYU10. Tulsa (Conference USA)11. North Carolina12. Ohio State13. San Jose State14. Oklahoma15. Oregon16. UNLV17. UC Davis18. UC Irvine (Big West Conference)19. Fresno State (Western Athletic Conference)20. Oral Roberts (The Summit League)21. Portland State (Big Sky Conference)
Individuals:
1. Mallory Blackwelder, Kentucky2. Danielle Cvitanov, San Francisco3. Emily Powers, Kansas
