April 27, 2009
WACO, Texas - The Baylor women's golf team has qualified for its ninth NCAA Regional in the last 10 years, the NCAA office announced Monday afternoon.
The Lady Bears will be part of a 21-team field at the NCAA West Regional in Tempe, Ariz., May 7-9. Four other Big 12 schools received an invite, including Texas A&M, Colorado and Texas who are all in the West regional with Baylor.
Arizona State, the No. 1 seed in the West regional, will host the tournament at the Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Arizona.
Prior to its recent seventh place finish at the Big 12 Championships, Baylor had won back-to-back tournaments for only the third time in the program's 21-year history and first time since 2004. Junior Hannah Burke leads Baylor with a stroke average of 75.4 in 30 rounds of play. Jordan Rhodes, a sophomore from San Antonio, Texas, has come on strong as of late for the Lady Bears, finishing no worse than 17th over her last three tournaments.
Regional tournaments are considered preliminary rounds of NCAA championships competition, and all national championships policies will apply. A total of 324 participants have been selected for the regional competition. Of these players, 126 will advance to the championship finals including eight teams and two individuals from each regional. Eight teams and two individuals will advance from each regional.
The championship finals will be held May 19-22 at the Caves Valley Golf Club, Owing Mills, Md., and will be hosted by the Georgetown University.
NCAA WEST REGIONAL - Tempe, Ariz.
Teams:
1. Arizona State (Pacific-10 Conference)
2. Southern California
3. Louisiana State
4. Pepperdine
5. Arkansas
6. San Jose State (Western Athletic Conference)
7. Arizona
8. California
9. UC Irvine
10. San Francisco
11. UNLV
12. TCU
13. Texas A&M
14. Oregon
15. Long Beach State (Big West Conference)
16. Colorado
17. Texas
18. Baylor
19. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (Southland Conference)
20. Northern Arizona (Big Sky Conference)
21. Oral Roberts (The Summit League)
Individuals:
1. Miki Ueoka, Santa Clara
2. Chelsea Stelzmiller, UC Davis
3. Alice Kim, UC Davis
