Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Women's Golf Tees it Up at Big South Championship Starting Monday
4/9/2010 8:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
April 9, 2010
LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bucknell women's golf team this weekend travels to Ninety-Six, S.C., for its eighth appearance at the Big South Championship presented by Musco Sports Lighting. The three-day, 54-hole championship gets underway Monday morning at The Patriot Golf Club. Bucknell is the No. 6 seed among the nine competing teams, and the Bison will tee off alongside No. 4 Radford and No. 5 Gardner-Webb beginning at 8:50 a.m.
The No. 1 seed in the tournament is defending champion Coastal Carolina, which has a league-best Golfweek national ranking of 54. Rounding out the field in order of seed is Charleston Southern, Winthrop, Radford, Gardner-Webb, Bucknell, High Point and Holy Cross. Third-year Big South member Presbyterian will participate but will not count its scores in the standings due to its Division I transitional status.
This will be the third straight year and fourth time overall that the The Patriot Club has hosted the Big South Women's Golf Championship. Bucknell finished fifth there in 2005, a best-ever fourth in 2008 and sixth in 2009.
Last season, the Bison improved each day, posting rounds of 333-327-316. They had to play the final two rounds without standout Katie Jurenovich, who had to withdraw due to illness. Bucknell's low round each day came from a freshman, as Kelsey Meybin led in round one with a 78, Minjoo Lee in the second round with a 76 and Brittany Rendell with a final-round 77.
Meybin was the team's low finisher with a 240, good for 16th place. Lee finished 18th at 243, and Rendell was T-27th at 249.
All three will be back in the lineup as sophomores next week, joining Jurenovich and senior Leah Antkiewicz, who will be playing in the Big South Championship for the first time.
Counting fall and spring scores, Lee comes in with the best scoring average on the squat at 78.4, followed by Jurenovich at 79.8. Rendell's average is 84.3 and Antkiewicz's is 87.7. Meybin played to an 81.6 average in the fall, but she has yet to tee it up in a tournament this spring due to an illness.
Bucknell's best Big South finish came at The Patriot in 2008. That year the Bison finished fourth, led by a T-8th finish from then-freshman Jurenovich, who shot 78-80-77.
Bucknell's best single round in a Big South event was a 314 in the final round at Bent Brook GC in Alabama in 2006. The team's low 54-hole total is 889, also in 2006.
Amy Loughney's T-5th finish in 2005 is the best by a Bison player since the program joined the Big South in 2003. Loughney's 229 that year is the team's Big South record, and the low 18-hole round is Loughney's 75 in 2007.
The teams will play practice rounds on Sunday before official play begins Monday morning. The Big South Champion earns an automatic berth in the NCAA Regionals.
