April 2, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s women’s golf team will wrap up the 2008-09 regular season this weekend and get its final tune-up for the SEC Championships as they travel to Browns Summit, N.C., for the Bryan Park National Collegiate. Tournament action gets underway Friday, April 3, and runs through Sunday, April 5, at the Bryan Park Champions Course.

The Gamecocks will send out a slightly different lineup this weekend. Juniors Benedicte Toumpsin and Taylor Barrett will join freshman Katie Burnett as the regulars for South Carolina, and they will be joined by junior transfer Corrine Carr and freshman Cayci Ruppe.

Carr, a native of Pinehurst, N.C., will be traveling to her home state for the second time this year after playing in the Lady Tar Heel Invitational in Chapel Hill earlier in the season. The freshman is making her first appearance in the lineup since the Central District Invitational in Tampa, Fla., back in February. Carr has played the Bryan National tournament previously, turning in a 37th-place finish last season while a sophomore at Furman.

Toumpsin, ranked 61st in the nation as an individual by GolfWeek, will also be making her third appearance at this tournament, a fixture on the South Carolina schedule for the last six seasons. Last season, the then-sophomore turned in a 34th-place finish in helping the Gamecocks to a seventh-place showing on a course that yielded few low scores. As a freshman in 2007, the Belgium native recorded a 24th-place showing as South Carolina finished eighth out of 18 teams.

The rest of the lineup will be making their first appearances in the Bryan National Collegiate. Barrett and Burnett join Toumpsin as the only Gamecocks to play in every tournament thus far. Burnett currently stands second on the team with a 75.38 stroke average and three top-20 finishes this season. Barrett carries an average of 78.62 and got her best finish this season at The Derby in Auburn, Ala., as she finished tied for 23rd. Meanwhile, Ruppe will be making her third appearance in the Carolina lineup and fourth tournament start overall, having played as an individual at The Derby.

An 18-team field chock full of ranked teams awaits South Carolina this weekend. The Gamecocks, ranked 46th in the latest GolfWeek release, will face a field that includes No. 4 Virginia, No. 8 Wake Forest, No. 11 LSU, No. 13 Georgia, No. 14 North Carolina, No. 18 Arkansas, No. 19 Louisville, No. 20 Michigan State, No. 27 Ohio State, No. 30 Notre Dame, No. 33 TCU, No. 34 Tennessee, No. 38 NC State, No. 45 East Carolina, College of Charleston, UNC Greensboro and UNC Wilmington.

Tee times and first-round pairings will be announced later Thursday and will be posted on golfstat.com as they become available.