STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ¨C May 7, 2003 ¨C The Penn State women¡¯s golf team begins competition at the NCAA East Regional Championship on Thursday. The event will run through Saturday and is being played at the Salem Glen Country Club in Clemmons, N.C. Wake Forest is the host institution.
The Nittany Lions will be participating in the NCAA East Regional for the first time since 1999 and just the second time in program history. Penn State competed in the 1985 NCAA Championships prior to the current regional format. Twenty-one teams will compete in the regional, with the top eight teams and top two individuals advancing to the NCAA Championships, May 21-24 at Purdue. Duke, Arizona, and Auburn are the top three seeds in the East Regional.
Coach Denise St. Pierre¡¯s team is ranked No. 44 by the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index. The Lions have won three tournaments this year, the Yale Invitational, the Nittany Lion Invitational and the Peggy Kirk Invitational.
¡°We are pleased to have been selected for the NCAA Championship,¡± stated St. Pierre. ¡°The team has worked hard preparing for the tournament. We are striving for three sub-300 rounds that will hopefully put us in the top eight teams of the 21-team field.¡±
Last year, Nittany Lion Katie Futcher (The Woodlands, Texas) competed as an individual at the NCAA East Regional and placed seventh with a score of 217. Futcher, a senior, has earned All-Big Ten honors the past two seasons.
The NCAA East Regional will begin Thursday with the first round starting at 7:30 a.m., while Penn State tees off at 11:50 a.m. Teams will begin play Friday and Saturday at 7:30 a.m. Results from the NCAA East Regional will be available on www.GoPSUsports.com and www.golfstat.com throughout the competition.
