April 13, 2011
SDSU Tournament Notes in PDF Format
2011 MWC Championships
Hosted by: MWC
Site: Wigwam Resort, Litchfield Park, Ariz.
Par: 72 Yardage: 6,408
Holes: 54
Dates: April 14-16
2010 Team Champion: UNM (898 (+34))
2010 Individual Champion: Jodi Ewart, UNM (217 (+1))
The Field (7 teams): #43 San Diego State, #51 BYU, #104 Colorado State, #52 New Mexico, #34 TCU, #48 UNLV, #136 Wyoming
*Rankings - Golfstat.com (as of April 13)
The San Diego State women's golf team resumes action after a more than 10-day break for the 2011 Mountain West Conference championships, April 14-16. The 54-hole tournament takes place at the par-72, 6,408-yard Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park, Ariz., just outside Phoenix.
The event will be played in Arizona for the first time, marking the fifth different state for the sport's league championships since the MWC's inception 12 years ago. The last two conference tournaments were both held at the Black Horse Golf Course in Seaside, Calif.
The Aztecs are looking to improve on their fifth-place performance from a year ago, facing a field of six other schools with four of them ranked among the top 52 in the nation.
Teams play 18 holes each of the three days, following a practice round Wednesday afternoon. The Aztecs will be paired with TCU and Colorado State for the first round, starting at 8:30 a.m. PT from the first tee on Thursday.
Aztec Line-Up For This Week
Second-year Aztec head coach Emilee Klein will take a senior, a junior and three sophomores to this week's Mountain West Conference championships. Four of the five competed for SDSU at last year's conference tournament, while sophomore transfer Alessia Knight (Bologna, Italy) will be making her MWC debut.
Senior Stephanie Arcala (Oceanside, Calif.) is the most experienced player, having competed the three previous years with her best finish coming last season when she tied for 16th place.
Joining Knight and Arcala are junior Malin Enarsson (Gothenburg, Sweden), who placed 10th each of the last two years, and sophomores Christine Wong (Richmond, B.C.) and Gina Clark (Murrieta, Calif.), who made their MWC tourney debuts in 2010.
The Competition
Four of SDSU's opponents this week are ranked in the top 52 in the golfstat.com rankings as of April 13. Reigning MWC champion New Mexico, which has claimed the last three and seven overall MWC titles, comes into the tournament ranked No. 52 by Golfstat.
TCU, the 2007 conference champ, holds the highest ranking in the MWC with a No. 34 spot by golfstat, while three-time first-place finisher UNLV is No. 48. Brigham Young (No. 51), Colorado State (No. 104) and Wyoming (No. 136) round out the field.
San Diego State, meanwhile, sits at No. 43 in the golfstat rankings, a three-spot jump from last year at this time. In 2010-11, the Aztecs are perfect in the head-to-head results vs. BYU (3-0) and Wyoming (1-0) and boast winning records against Colorado State (2-1) and New Mexico (4-3). SDSU is deadlocked at 2-2 with UNLV, while it has yet to finish ahead of TCU in four tries in 2010-11.
Individually, all seven of the top-10 finishers from last year's MWC tournament return, including runner-up Rachel Raastad of TCU.
SDSU In The MWC Tournament
In the 11-year history of the Mountain West Conference, SDSU has finished fifth in this event on five occasions, second and seventh twice and fourth and sixth once apiece.
Last season, the Aztecs jumped two spots to take fifth place, coming in with a 69-over 933, after ending up in seventh in both 2008 and 2009. The program was sixth in 2007, fifth in 2003, 2005 and 2006, fourth in 2004 and was runner-up in both 2001 and 2002. The Aztecs were disqualified in the inaugural tournament in 2000, after two players turned in incorrect scorecards in the third and final round.
Individually, the highest SDSU finish came in 2002, when Heather Rollo tied for second place with a 218, just two strokes out of first. Jenna Wilson owns the school record for the best score in a 54-hole conference tournament with a 2-over-215 in 2004.
Mountain West History Lesson
• New Mexico dominated the first four years of the MWC championship, claiming the team title by at least 11 shots in each of the first three years before coming back to defeat UNLV in 2003 by one stroke. The Lady Rebels got their revenge, knocking off the Lobos by two strokes in both 2004 and 2005 to claim the conference championship. UNLV captured its third-straight title in 2006, while TCU won by one stroke over BYU in 2007. Playing on their home course, the Lobos topped the Cougars by 19 strokes in the 2008 edition to start their current three-year reign, which includes two-straight decisions over runner-up TCU from 2009-10.
• Four different schools have had a player win the individual title, including UNLV (2004, 2005, 2006), New Mexico (2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010), Colorado State (2002) and Wyoming (2000, 2009).
• The first MWC championship took place at the Sunbrook Golf Club in St. George, Utah. The tournament then moved to Sunriver (Ore.) the next five seasons, however, the first round of the 2003 event was played at the Awbrey Glen Golf Course in Bend, Ore., due to inclement weather. The event has also been played at the Entrada at Snow Canyon in St. George (2006-07), the UNM championship course in Albuquerque, N.M. (2008) and the Black Horse Golf Course in Seaside, Calif. (2009-10).
• The year's course yardage of 6,408 is the longest in MWC tournament history with the previous record of 6,312 yards coming in 2005 in Sunriver.
• New Mexico and UNLV own all but one of the 12 MWC championship records.
Aztec 10-11 Highlights
The San Diego State women's golf team, which is looking to earn its second consecutive NCAA regional appearance, has produced a mixed bag of results thus far in 2010-11.
The Aztecs have won one tournament, the 12-team Gold Rush in Yorba Linda, Calif., in mid-February, and have placed in the top five in two other events. On the other hand, SDSU finished last at its lone home outing, the Battle at Rancho Bernardo, took 11th at the Arizona State PING Invite and were 13th of 17 squads at the final fall tournament, although they were competing without Christine Wong in Las Vegas.
As a testament to their strength of schedule, however, the Aztecs enter the conference tournament with the second-highest national ranking among league schools at 43rd, which is three spots ahead of where they were at the same point last season.
Individually, Wong boasts the sixth-best stroke average in the MWC at 75.62, and has finished in the top 20 on four occasions. Junior Malin Enarsson placed third twice, sophomore Gina Clark has carded SDSU's best stroke average of the spring (75.73) and senior Stephanie Arcala has been the team's most consistent golfer, highlighted by a fourth-place performance at The Gold Rush.
MWC Championship Results
Live stats will be provided for this year's MWC championship. The stats will be available on the SDSU (goaztecs.com) and MWC websites (www.themwc.com) or via Golfstat (golfstat.com).
Last Time Out: Wong Leads SDSU In Tempe
In the final event before the Mountain West Conference championship, sophomore Christine Wong moved from 16th into a tie for sixth place with a final-round 72 to lead San Diego State at the PING/Arizona State Invitational in Tempe, Ariz., April 1-3. As a team, the Aztecs took 11th with a 44-over 908 at the par-72, 6,230-yard Karsten Golf Course.
Wong moved up the individual leaderboard after each round, but recorded her biggest jump with the help of five birdies to card a final-round 72. She finished the three-day event with a 1-over 217, which is the team's best individual performance of the spring campaign and her low 54-hole score of the season by three strokes.
Senior Stephanie Arcala went from 73rd after the first 18 holes to 49th place with consecutive 75s, while sophomore Gina Clark did the opposite, moving down 15 slots into 54th place following her final-round 80.
SDSU's final three golfers all were within two strokes of one another, as sophomore Alessia Knight, who was competing as an individual, tied for 74th with a 235, senior Samantha Roberts came in 76th with a 237 and junior Malin Enarsson ended up 80th with a 239.
Up Next
The winner of this week's Mountain West Conference championship earns an automatic bid to the NCAA regional tournament. If SDSU claims the MWC title, it will head to the NCAA regionals, May 5-7, in either Seattle, Wash. (West), Notre Dame, Ind., (Central) or Daytona Beach, Fla. (East). The trip to the NCAAs would be the team's second consecutive and second overall since 2004.
Each of the three regional tournaments will include 24 teams and six individuals, not on those teams. The participants will be selected by the NCAA women's golf committee and are announced on April 25.
The top eight teams and two individuals (not on those teams) from each region will advance to the NCAA championships, May 18-21, in College Station, Texas.
Head Coach Emilee Klein
Head coach and 1996 Women's British Open champion Emilee Klein is in her second season at San Diego State. 
Klein's first campaign was a huge success, as the Aztecs won back-to-back tournaments and reached the NCAA regionals for the first time in six years. Canadian Christine Wong was named an all-conference selection and the MWC Freshman of the Year, after twice earning medalist honors.
Prior to being hired at SDSU in July 2009, she starred on the LPGA Tour for 11 seasons (1995-2005), competing in over 300 tournaments and earning more than $3.1 million in prize money. She won three events during her professional career, including the 1996 Weetabix Women's British Open, the 1996 Ping Welch's Championship and the 2001 Michelob Light Classic.
After retiring from the LPGA Tour, Klein took over as head women's golf coach at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla. Under her direction, she led the Knights to back-to-back NCAA regional appearances in 2008 and 2009.
She is assisted by former University of Miami Hurricane, Tiffany Prats, who is in her second year with the Aztecs.