TCU set for NCAA Championship play
5/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
May 20, 2007
FORT WORTH, Texas -- The TCU women's golf team begins play Tuesday at the NCAA Women's Golf Championship in Daytona Beach, Fla.The Horned Frogs, up five spots to No. 18 in the latest Golfstat rankings, will be playing in their first NCAA Championship since 2000. TCU qualified by placing third at the NCAA Central Regional (May 10-12) in Ann Arbor, Mich. It was the Frogs' best regional finish in school history.
TCU is making its fourth NCAA Championship appearance under 13th-year coach Angie Ravaioli-Larkin and its ninth overall. The Frogs won the 1983 national title and were second in 1982.
The 2007 NCAA Championship is being held at the LPGA International's Legends Course, the annual site of the tour's Qualifying School. Duke has won the last two NCAA titles and three of the past five. The Blue Devils are looking to become the first school to win three consecutive championships since Arizona State from 1993-95.
TCU is one of three Mountain West Conference members in the field. BYU and New Mexico also qualified. The other teams are Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, Auburn, Denver, Duke, Georgia, Indiana, Louisville, Michigan State, North Carolina, Oklahoma State, Pepperdine, Purdue, Stanford, Tennessee, UC Irvine, UCLA, USC, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest. There are six individuals competing.
The NCAA Championship is a 72-hole event over four days. Live scoring is available at www.golfstat.com. TCU will tee off Tuesday on the 10th hole with Arizona State and Wake Forest at 12:30 p.m. ET.
The Frogs are 204-16 in head-to-head competition versus opponents this season, including seven victories over top-25 teams.
TCU has a 75.4 team stroke average, led by Catherine Matranga at 73.8. Matranga has seven top-10 finishes in 12 tournaments this season. The senior from Fort Worth was seventh at the NCAA Central Regional.
Elin Emanuelsson, who was ninth at the NCAA Central Regional, has posted a top-10 result in each of the last three tournaments. She has a 74.4 stroke average in that stretch and is at 76.3 on the season. Emanuelsson is a senior from Nacka, Sweden.
Camille Blackerby is the third senior in the TCU lineup. The Breckenridge, Texas, native is a three-time all-conference selection. Her 75.0 stroke average includes six top-10 finishes in 2006-07.
Matranga, Emanuelsson and Blackerby have all posted career-low stroke averages this season.
Rounding out TCU's lineup are a pair of freshmen in Valentine Derrey (Paris, France) and Megan O'Donnell (Houston, Texas).
Derrey was an All-Mountain West Conference selection. Her 74.7 stroke average is seventh in the MWC. Derrey placed in the top 14 in five of her seven spring tournaments, including medalist honors at the Lady Puerto Rico Classic (Feb. 23-25).
O'Donnell equaled a career-low round with a 74 for TCU's best score over the final 18 holes at the NCAA Central Regional. In all five of her tournaments, O'Donnell recorded her best score in the final round.
Players Mentioned
