May 18, 2005

Sunriver, Ore. – South Carolina sophomore women’s golfer Jenna Pearson matched her first-round score by carding an eight-over-par 79 Wednesday and sits in a tie for 104th with a two-round score of 79-79=158 at the 2005 NCAA Women’s Golf Championships played at the Sunriver Resort in Sunriver, Ore.

For the second consecutive round, Pearson struggled early on and needed to battle back the rest of the way. After achieving par on her first hole, Pearson bogeyed the next two and took a double bogey on the par-three fourth hole. She came back to birdie the par-four fifth, but bogeyed two of the next three holes. Sitting at five over through her first eight holes, Pearson rattled off four consecutive pars before recording a birdie on the par-three 13th hole. Her momentum was curbed on the next hole, however, as she took a double-bogey on the par-four 14th to move to six over. She finished her day with two pars on 15 and 16 and a pair of bogeys on 17 and 18.

Pearson qualified for the NCAA Championships by finishing with one of the two lowest scores among players representing schools that did not qualify as a team at the NCAA East Regional earlier this month. She played her best golf of the year at the Sunriver Resort during the fall, carding a three-round score of 69-74-74=217 to finish in a tie for 14th at the NCAA Fall Preview. Her first-round 69 was the lowest round for any Carolina player this year.

South Carolina has been represented at the NCAA Championships in each of the last seven years. The Gamecocks qualified for NCAAs as a team in 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2003 and were represented by individual qualifiers in 2000 (Rebecca Lee), 2004 (Adrienne Gautreaux) and 2005 (Jenna Pearson). During coach Kristi Coggins’ 11-year tenure at Carolina, the Gamecocks have qualified for NCAA Regionals 10 times and the NCAA Championships six times, with their best finish coming in 1995, when the team finished ninth.

Pearson is set to tee off at 12:50 p.m. eastern time on Thursday.