UNLV Begins Journey Toward NCAA Championships

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UNLV Begins Journey Toward NCAA Championships

Rebels open play Thursday at NCAA West Regionals in New Mexico.

MWC Player of the Year Elena Kurokawa leads the Rebels into the NCAA West Regionals.

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May 4, 2005

LAS VEGAS - The No. 26 ranked UNLV women's golf team opens play Thursday at the NCAA West Regional in Las Cruces, New Mexico as the Rebels will attempt to advance to the NCAA Championships for a second consecutive year.

The Rebels are coming off their second-straight Mountain West Conference Championship, which they won two weeks ago by two strokes over No. 12 New Mexico in Sunriver, Ore., to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Regionals. Elena Kurokawa won the MWC individual title as well on her way to earning the league's player of the year honor. The junior's win at the conference championships was her first medalist honor and Kurokawa will bring a string of five-consecutive top-10 finishes into the West Regional.

Kurokawa will be joined in the Rebel lineup by seniors Hwanhee Lee, Young Pak and Christine Hentzner and sophomore Seema Sadekar. Kurokawa, Pak, Lee and Sadekar were all on last year's East Regional qualifying team that took second to Duke and Hentzner, Kurokawa and Lee were members of the 2003 West Regional squad.

UNLV enters this year's regional as the 10th seed in a field of 21 teams that includes nine of the top 25 in Golfweek's latest rankings. Four teams from the top 10 are among the field, including Pac-10 champion No. 2 UCLA, No. 5 Georgia, Big-12 champion No. 7 Oklahoma State and No. 9 Tennessee. MWC members Colorado State and BYU are also in the field.

The top eight teams and top two individuals not on qualifying teams advance to the NCAA Championships, scheduled for May 18-21 at Sunriver, Ore., the same course where the 2005 MWC Championships were played.

Teams:
1. UCLA (Pacific-10 Conference)
2. Georgia
3. Oklahoma State (Big 12 Conference)
4. Tennessee
5. Southern California
6. Arizona
7. California
8. Washington State
9. Stanford
10. UNLV (Mountain West Conference)
11. Oregon
12. San Francisco
13. UC Irvine (Big West Conference)
14. Brigham Young
15. Colorado State
16. Portland State (Big Sky Conference)
17. Northwestern
18. Oral Roberts (Mid-Continent Conference)
19. Illinois State (Missouri Valley Conference)
20. Georgia State (Atlantic Sun Conference)
21. Denver (Sun Belt Conference)

Individuals:
1. Kay Hoey, Long Beach State
2. Laura Luethke, Fresno State
3. Renee Skidmore, Idaho