University of Tennessee Athletics
LADY VOL GOLF SET TO COMPETE FOR NATIONAL TITLE
May 16, 2005 | Women's Golf
May 16, 2005
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For the first time in school history, the No. 6 Lady Volunteer golf team will compete in consecutive NCAA Championships. UT enters the event flying high, following a first-place tie with No. 2 UCLA at the NCAA West Regional with a score of 889. The Big Orange is in search of the program's first national title and hits the Meadows Course on Tuesday afternoon for the first round of play.
The lineup for the Orange and White will be the same as it was during NCAA Regional play. SEC Golfer of the Year Violeta Retamoza (Aguascalientes, Mexico) leads the way, with Jessica Shepley (Oakville, Ontario), Golda Johansson (Lund, Sweden), Marci Turner (Tompkinsville, Ky.) and Sarah Bonner-Shanks (Kingsport, Tenn.). rounding out the Lady Vol top five.
Of the 24 teams in the field for the 2005 NCAA Golf Championships, 19 are ranked in either Golfstat or Golfweek's top 25, including nine of the top 10 squads. It also features the past three national champions (UCLA, Southern Cal, Duke). On the year the Lady Vols are an impressive 35-16-2 against the other squads in the NCAA field while historically, UT holds a 335-303-6 mark all-time.
Last year at the NCAA Championships the Lady Vol golf team fired a program-best four-day total of 1193 en route to an 11th-place finish. Shepley also attacked the record books, establishing the school standard for an individual at the NCAAs with a total of 286.
This trip to the national championship marks the fifth time in school history that UT will compete in the event. As a team its best finish came in the year 2000 when the Lady Vols claimed fifth place. That tournament was held in Sunriver, Ore., which is the location of this year's national title event. In 1997 the Orange and White claimed sixth place while Judi Pavon's charges earned 11th last year. It was in that event that Shepley brought home a school-high fifth-place NCAA finish for an individual. In the program's first appearance at the NCAAs in 1994, Tennessee finished 13th.
The event begins on Tuesday at 9 a.m.
