April 27, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s women’s golf team has earned a bid to the 2009 NCAA Championship and will begin competition at the East Regional in Gainesville, Fla., the NCAA announced Monday. The 63-team field includes 11 of 12 schools from the Southeastern Conference, eight of which will be competing May 7-9 in Gainesville. The other two regional sites are Columbus, Ohio (Central) and Tempe, Ariz. (West). Eight teams and two individuals will advance from each regional to the NCAA Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md.

“It’s a new season,” South Carolina head coach Kalen Anderson said. “Everyone starts from scratch once you get to the postseason. We’re going to go out there and give it a run and hope it’s our week. Of course, there will be 20 other very good teams there hoping it’s their week as well, so we’ve got to keep working hard.”

The Gamecocks, ranked 42nd in the latest GolfStat rankings used by the NCAA to determine the regional field, will look for a repeat of their regional performance last season. In the NCAA East Regional in Athens, Ga., the Gamecocks stunned the college golf world with a sixth-place finish and earned a berth in the NCAA Championship for the first time since 2003. The sixth-place showing came mostly on the merits of then-sophomore Benedicte Toumpsin turning in a career-best performance to win the individual championship with a 214 (-2).

This year marks South Carolina’s 11th consecutive appearance in an NCAA Regional dating back to the 1999 season. It will be the second time the Gamecocks have played a regional at the Mark Bostick Golf Course at the University of Florida; South Carolina finished ninth in the 2005 East Regional with a score of 903.

The full NCAA Championship field for all three regionals can be accessed through NCAA.com.

NCAA EAST REGIONAL FIELD
Alabama
Auburn (SEC Champion)
Coastal Carolina (Big South Champion)
College of Charleston
Denver (Sun Belt Champion)
Duke
East Carolina
Florida
Florida State
Furman (Southern Conference Champion)
Georgia
Jackson State (SWAC Champion)
Mississippi
North Carolina
South Carolina
Stetson (Atlantic Sun Champion)
Tennessee
Tulane (Conference USA Champion)
UCF
Vanderbilt
Virginia

INDIVIDUALS
Susannah Aboff, Princeton
Julia Potter, Missouri
Jessica Hollandsworth, Maryland