April 26, 2010

USF Women's Golf Selected to Compete in the 2010 NCAA West Regional

April 26, 2010

(San Francisco) - USF women's golf earned its eighth NCAA Regional bid in 10 years and will compete in the 2010 West Regional hosted by Stanford at the Stanford Golf Course in Palo Alto, CA. Play commences Thursday, May 6. The Dons enter the postseason ranked No. 41 in the current GolfStat.com poll and No. 39 in the GolfWeek.com poll.

"I am absolutely thrilled that the Dons have qualified for the NCAA Regional Championship in my first season," USF head coach Sarah Huarte said." My seniors have contributed immensely and I can tell that they really want to qualify for the National Championship. They have carried us thus far. I am looking forward to the opportunity to compete with some of the top teams in the nation and hopefully show them our true potential."

Once in regional play, the top eight teams at each of the three regional sites qualify for the NCAA Nationals May 18-21 at the Country Club of Landfall, hosted by North Carolina. The Dons seek their first ever trip to nationals.

San Francisco enjoyed a strong 2009-10 regular season. The Dons posted five top-five finishes out of the 10 events it competed in and closed the season with back-to-back runner-up showings at the Anteater Invitational and the 2010 West Coast Conference Championship.

USF also recorded a runner-up finish at the Challenge at Onion Creek and set a new program 54-hole tournament record in the process, finishing the event with a 2-over par 842. The Dons turned in the second best team stroke average in program history (300.87).

DONS SENIORS SOUND OFF: San Francisco's record-setting senior class prepares for its third voyage into NCAA Regional play. The Dons Class of 2010 - Danielle Cvitanov, Natasha Podmore and Christina Stockton - all relish the idea of finishing their careers with the program's first-ever trip to nationals.

Christina Stockton: "I was really excited (to hear `San Francisco' named on the conference call announcing the regional field). We are all such good players and I think we have a lot of potential to win and really have a strong finish. Throughout the whole season we haven't quite accomplished exactly what we want to, so I'm very excited for our team to have the opportunity to have a good finish and make it to nationals. It's nice to be a senior and have the postseason in front of us once again. I'm looking forward to spending time with the team."

Danielle Cvitanov: "We have our best rounds in front of us. We are going to go out there and play confidently. We don't have anything to lose here and we have everything to gain by playing in this postseason competition. I'm excited. This is our last one."

Natasha Podmore: "Sarah's taught us a lot on the course. She's a very experienced player herself and won nationals individually. It has been tough transitioning through different coaches over the years, but we feel like we've learned from each one and we're playing well at the moment. We feel like we're going to do well. We're grateful to have this opportunity to play in the postseason. I'm really confident going into this tournament and I think we'll do very well."

The West Regional Field: The West regional will be played May 6-8 at the Stanford Golf Course, Stanford, California hosted by Stanford University. Conference automatic qualifiers are indicated in parenthesis next to the institution.

Teams:
UCLA
Alabama (Southeastern Conference)
Arizona (Pacific-10 Conference)
Ohio State
Virginia
Stanford
LSU
California
Texas A&M (Big 12 Conference)
Texas
UC Davis (Big West Conference)
Arkansas
UNLV
San Jose State (Western Athletic Conference)
San Francisco
Idaho
UC Irvine
Iowa State
Maryland
Colorado State
Oral Roberts (The Summit League)
Texas State (Southland Conference)
Pennsylvania (Ivy Group)
Portland State (Big Sky Conference)