April 26, 2010
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's golf team earned its first NCAA regional bid in six years, as the Aztecs are one of 72 schools that will compete at one of three tournament sites, May 6-8, the NCAA Division I Women's Golf Committee announced Monday afternoon. SDSU is seeded No. 16 among the 24 teams headed to the central regional in Columbus, Ind., at Otter Creek Golf Course.
"We are excited to have been selected to play in the central regional," said San Diego State first-year head coach Emilee Klein. "It will be an excellent course for our team. We play well on traditional courses and cannot wait to get started."
The Aztecs will play 18 holes each of the three days with a practice round on Wednesday. The top eight teams and the low two individuals not on those teams from each regional will advance to the NCAA national championships at the Country Club of Landfall in Wilmington, N.C., May 18-21.
San Diego State's last NCAA regional appearance came in 2004, when the Aztecs played at Stanford, tying for 15th place. This is the program's fourth trip to regionals as a team and it marks the seventh time SDSU has sent at least one golfer to the regional round. The Aztecs will be seeking their first-ever trip to the national championships.
The Aztecs finished the regular season ranked 46th nationally by golfstat.com and are 45th in the Golfweek/Sagarin Ratings. Klein has used the same five-player line-up the entire spring, including 2010 Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year Christine Wong (Richmond, B.C.), 2009 MWC Freshman of the Year Malin Enarsson (Gothenburg, Sweden), juniors Stephanie Arcala (Oceanside, Calif.) and Samantha Roberts (Carlsbad, Calif.) and freshman Gina Clark (Murrieta, Calif.). All five would be making their NCAA debuts.