Oct. 25, 2013
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's golf team will put the finishing touches on its 2013 fall schedule early next week when it competes in the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown, Oct. 27-29, at the par-72, 6,230-yard Stallion Mountain Golf Club in Las Vegas, Nev.
The 48th-ranked Aztecs are one of 17 schools slated to play in the three-day, 54-hole event, which gets underway Sunday and Monday with tee times at 8 a.m. PT, while the final 18 holes will be contested on Tuesday beginning with a shotgun start at 7:45 a.m. A live scoring link courtesy of Golfstat will be available on www.goaztecs.com.
Along with SDSU, the tournament features five additional squads ranked among the top 60 in the latest Golfstat ratings index, including Central Florida (23), Denver (34) and Wisconsin (37), as well as Mountain West rivals UNLV (51) and New Mexico (55). The Aztecs will also battle two other conference foes in Fresno State and Nevada, while Furman, Idaho, Kansas State, Long Beach State, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas Tech and UC Irvine round out the field.
Third-year SDSU head coach Leslie Spalding will employ the same lineup utilized in the first three tournaments of the season, led by freshman extraordinaire Sirene Blair, along with sophomores Emma Henrikson and Shannon Lubar, junior Paige Spiranac and senior Maureen Dunnagan, while juniors Amy Alston and Kristina Lynn are scheduled to compete as individuals
Blair, who tops the squad with a 72.44 stroke average, enters week with a No. 32 individual ranking by both Golfstat and Golfweek after posting a trio of top-10 individual finishes in her first three collegiate tournaments, highlighted by a third-place performance at the University of New Mexico's Dick McGuire Invitiational on Sept. 21. The MW Co-Golfer of the Month for September is also coming off a solid seventh-place effort at the highly competitive Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational in her last outing two weeks ago when she carded a season-low 5-under 211.
In addition, Henrikson is averaging 74.00 strokes per round and also has a top-10 showing this year after tying for eighth with an 11-over 227 at the Minnesota Invitational on Sept. 17. The 2012-13 MW Freshman of the Year currently ranks fourth in MW head-to-head competition, trailing only UNLV's Dana Finkelstein, Sammi Stevens of New Mexico and teammate Blair.
The Aztecs will be participating in the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown for the fourth straight year and fifth overall since 2004. Last year, SDSU tied for ninth out of 18 teams with a collective score of 920 (+56), with departed senior Christine Wong (+5) tying for sixth on the individual leaderboard to lead the Scarlet and Black.
Meanwhile, Henrikson, Dunnagan and Alston are all back to tackle the Stallion Mountain course once again. Henrikson tied for ninth in 2012 with a combined 6-over 222, while Dunnagan (+22) and Alston (+25) landed in a tie for 69th and 80th, respectively.
SDSU logged its best finish at the tournament in 2011, tying Pepperdine for second place with a collective 20-over 884 at Boulder Creek Golf Club.
Following the Las Vegas Showdown, San Diego State will have three-and-a-half months off before opening its spring schedule at the Peg Barnard Invitational, Feb. 16-17, 2014, in Stanford, Calif.