May 19, 2005

Sunriver, Ore. – South Carolina women’s golfer Jenna Pearson shot a one-over-par 72 in Thursday’s third round of the 2005 NCAA Women’s Golf Championships, played at the Sunriver Resort in Sunriver, Ore., to bring her three-day score to 79-79-72=230.

Pearson sits in a tie for 70th on the individual leader board after she shaved seven strokes off her scores from the first two rounds thanks largely to keeping her focus when faced with early adversity. The sophomore started her day on the course’s back nine and acheived par on her first two holes, but took a triple-bogey on the par-four 12th hole. Pearson regrouped, however, stringing together seven pars and a trio of birdies on the course’s par-four 14th hole and par-three 16th and fourth holes to bring her score to even par after 13 holes. Pearson erased a bogey on the course’s fifth hole with a birdie on the par-four seventh. She bogeyed the eighth and finished her day by shooting par on the ninth hole and finish her day at one-over.

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 for the final round at 12:50 p.m. eastern time on Friday.