May 6, 2009
NORMAL, Ill. - The Illinois State women's golf team will compete in the 2009 NCAA Central Regional Thursday-Saturday. The 54-hole, three-day event is being hosted by Ohio State at the par-72 Scarlet Golf Course in Columbus, Ohio. Each day will consist 18-holes of play. The Redbirds will tee off Thursday afternoon at 1:20 p.m.
"The girls are motivated and focused for this weekend, and we are all looking forward to playing the Scarlet course," said head coach Darby Sligh. "If they continue to stay motivated and focused on their game, we have a good chance to be in the mix. This is a very talented veteran squad that is capable of putting up numbers low enough to get them through to nationals. We are just as comfortable in the underdog role as we are being picked to win, so we'll see what happens."
The Redbirds' line up will consist of seniors Marci Hill and Tiffany Hockensmith, along with juniors Laura Harris, Stacey Miller and Marisa Milligan.
The 21-team field consists of Chattanooga, Fairleigh Dickinson, Georgia State, Harvard, Kent State, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan, Michigan State, Murray State, New Mexico, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Stanford, UCLA, Wake Forest and Washington.
Individual competitors will be Kendall Dye (Oklahoma), Kayla Mortellaro (Idaho) and Sara Wikstrom (Arkansas-Little Rock).
324 participants will compete in three regionals (Central, East and West) and 126 will advance to the championships finals. The top eight teams and two individuals will advance from each round to compete in the championship finals May 19-22 at the Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md., hosted by Georgetown.
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