WGOLF CENTRAL: Lady Vols Begin Postseason at SEC Championship

Wednesday, April 18

Birmingham, Ala.

All Day

University of Tennessee

SEC Championship

WGOLF CENTRAL: Lady Vols Begin Postseason at SEC Championship

April 16, 2018 | Women's Golf

By: Rachel Gunia

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Tennessee women's golf begins postseason play on Wednesday, April 18, at the 2018 SEC Championship hosted at Greystone's Legacy Course in Birmingham, Alabama. The tournament returns to Greystone Golf and Country Club for the sixth consecutive year and will take place over five days (4/18-4/22) for the first time in tournament history.

The Field

The field features 14 teams, six of which are ranked in Golfstat's top 25.

#2 Alabama
#3 Arkansas
#20 Auburn
#13 Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Missouri
#10 South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas A&M
#24 Vanderbilt

Tournament Format

The 2018 event is the first to be extended to five days, with match play on Saturday, April 21 and Sunday, April 22. Three rounds of stroke play will occur during the opening three rounds of the SEC Championship.
The practice round will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, April 17.
Tee times for the first three rounds (4/18-4/20) begin at 9:00 a.m. ET. The individual SEC Champion will be crowned following the three rounds of stroke play.
The top eight teams will advance to match play. The quarterfinals and semi-finals of match play will be played on Saturday, April 21.
The match play championship will be played on Sunday, April 22.
The championship match on Sunday will also be televised live on SEC Network.

Tournament History

Held since 1981, Georgia claims the most SEC Championship titles with 11 while Auburn and Florida have each captured nine championships.
After the inception of the program in 1992, Tennessee made its first SEC Championship appearance in the spring of 1993. UT placed second out of 11 teams that season and went on to tie for eighth place at the NCAA East Regional.
Katharina Larsson became the first individual SEC Champion from Tennessee in 1994 after shooting 209.
Larsson's nine-stroke margin of victory in 1994 still ranks largest in the SEC record books. Georgia's Shauna Estes and Alabama's Stephanie Meadow both tied the record with nine-stroke leads of their own in 1999 and 2013, respectively.
Tennessee recorded the seventh-lowest second round score of the SEC Championship on April 20, 2002 with a total of 282.
In 2011, Erica Popson earned the individual title for the Vols with a 54-hole score of 210.
Popson shot 66 in the first round of the 2011 SEC Championship, breaking Garret Phillips' 2007 first-round record of 67.

Tennessee's Lineup

2017-18 Lady Vols

Micheala Williams
- Williams continues to build off a fall campaign in which she posted a 74.25 average through four tournaments. She finished in the top 20 in three of those events and carded two rounds of par or better. She shot a 231 to start off her spring campaign at the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge where she finished tied for 63^rd. In the SunTrust Gator Invitational, Williams carded 214 and shot 70 in the final round to tie for 13th place. She then shot 219 at the Clemson Invitational, tying for 32^nd place. Williams carded 226 at the Bryan Nationals to place 21^st.
Waverly Whiston
- Whiston continues her debut season on Rocky Top in the SEC Championship after competing in all of Tennessee's tournaments this season. She shot 220 in the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship before carding a career-low 217 at the Magnolia Invite en route to an eighth-place finish. Whiston posted a tournament-low and career-low score of 67 in the second round of the Trinity Forest Invitational to record her second top-10 finish of the fall. Overall, Whiston has shot seven rounds of par or better since donning the orange and white, tying for the team lead in that category.
Blakesly Warren
- Warren enters the SEC Championship with five rounds of par or better. In the fall she carded three top-25 finishes, including a 12^th-place finish at the Magnolia Invitational with a score of 219 (+3). Hailing from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Warren shot a career-low 68 in the final round of the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship to finish the tournament tied for 14th place at one-under. To start the spring, Warren posted a 229 at the Northrop Grumman finishing the first tournament of the spring tied for 54^th place.
Anna Newell
- This season, Newell has a 74.78 stroke average through nine tournaments and a top-three finish at the 2017 Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship after turning in a perfect card with three birdies in the final round. To close out the fall at the Magnolia Invite, Newell shot a tournament-low round of 67 on the first day en route to tying for 17th place. Newell started out the spring leading the Lady Vols at the Northrop Grumman, finishing tied for 49^th after shooting a team-best 73 (+2) in round one. Newell tied for 16^th place at the Bryan National Collegiate on April 6-7.
Ariana Macioce
- A junior transfer from Georgia Southern, Macioce played in all four fall tournaments for the Lady Vols. She carded two rounds of par or better and averaged 75.92 in the fall. In her first event of the spring, Macioce shot a 235 at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate and finished tied for 83rd. She then recorded 219 in the SunTrust Gator Invitational to tie for 30th place. In her final regular season tournament, the Clemson Invite, Macioce shot 233.

Program Notes:

In the team's first tournament of 2017-18, UT tied for fifth place (893), while Anna Newell and Micheala Williams placed in the top 16 individually. Overall, the Vols shot five rounds of par or better in the Ocean Course Invitational (Sept. 4-5).
The Lady Vols closed out the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship (Sept. 18-19) with a final round of 280 (-4) to jump into third place. Newell also placed third in the tournament.
Tennessee women's golf carded 293 in the final round of the Magnolia Invitational (Oct. 1-3) to place third in the tournament. The finish marked the Lady Vols' second top-three finish this season and the team's first back-to-back placement in the top three since the beginning of the 2015-16 season.
The Vols closed out the fall with a third-place finish in the Trinity Forest Invitational where Whiston carded her second collegiate top-10 finish.
The Lady Vols struggled in their opening spring tournament, where they faced one of the strongest fields of the season, including 17 other ranked opponents, finishing 16^that the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge.
The Vols finished tied for 16^th at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate where they faced another strong field including nine teams ranked in Golfstat's top-20.
UT placed fourth at the SunTrust Gator Invitational with a 54-hole score of 857, marking the program's best finish of the spring.
Tennessee entered three individuals in the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate. All three players, Allison Herring, Mariah Smith and Haley Wagner, placed in the top six with Smith tying for third place.
Playing as an individual, Haley Wagner led Tennessee in the Clemson Invitational, tying for 25^th place. As a team, the Lady Vols shot 893 and placed 12^th.
In the final regular season tournament, the Vols placed seventh with two players finishing in the top 25.
Tennessee's early enrollee, Malia Stovall, was ranked as the No. 1 golfer in the state of Tennessee in the 2018 signing class.
Whiston was named a freshman to watch on Golfweek's Preseason Top 10 Freshmen List in September.
Head Coach Judi Pavon is in her 18th season at the helm of the program. Under her tutelage, Tennessee has reached 10 NCAA Championships in the last 14 years and posted a winning record in all but one season. The Vols have also had success in the classroom as the team posted the highest GPA (3.79) in both women's golf and Tennessee Athletics history during the 2016-2017 season.
Since the program's first regional bid in 1993, the Vols have qualified for the NCAA postseason every year with 2017 marking Tennessee's 25th consecutive appearance.

Additional Information

Live stats will be available at Golfstat.com and SECSports.com. Results will be posted to the recap at the conclusion of each round.

For the most up-to-date information about the Tennessee women's golf team, visit UTSports.com/w-golf, follow @Vol_WGolf on twitter, instagram and snapchat and like the Lady Vols on Facebook at Facebook.com/VolWomensGolf.