Falcons Return to the Links in South Carolina

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- The Bowling Green State University women's golf team ends its five-month winter hiatus this weekend when it travels to Hilton Head, S.C. for the 2012 Low Country Intercollegiate. The 36-hole tournament will take place on Sunday and Monday (March 25-26) and is being hosted by Wofford College.

The Falcons are one of 15 teams that will be competing in the two-day event at the par 72 South Course at the Moss Creek Golf Club. The course's 18 holes combine for a total length of 5,853 yards.

Teams will play one round of 18 holes on each day of the tournament for 36 total holes over two rounds. Sunday's first round begins with a 9:30 a.m. shotgun start.

Bowling Green is the only Mid-American Conference school in the event. Two Ivy League schools (Brown and Princeton) are participating in the tournament. The remainder of the 13 schools are from the Southeast; these include Western Kentucky, the Citadel, Jacksonville, Gardner-Webb, South Carolina Upstate, Tennessee Tech, Newberry, Presbyterian, Radford, Elon and Appalachian State.

The Hilton Head-based course provides very challenging golf, and the tournament records from the first three years of the event reflect that. The tournament record for team score is 616 over 36 holes, while the low round by a team is only 302. Individually, no player has shot par (72) or better in any round during the tournament's history; the record low is 73, which has been accomplished several times. The low 36-hole score for an individual is 147.

As the Falcons return to action, they hope to build upon the string of success the team found during its six-event schedule in the fall of 2011. During that stretch, the team finished second at the Cleveland State Invitational, third at the Zippy Invitational and fifth at the Redbird Invitational. The team played six of 13 rounds at 310 or better and finished with an average of 314.38, which would shatter the school record if maintained for the rest of the season.

Sophomore Bailey Arnold led the team as an individual with a 77.54 average. She ended the fall with three top-20 finishes and earned her first collegiate victory at the Redbird Invitational.

Shelby Wilson and Paula DiFrancesco each join Arnold with sub-80 averages. They threaten to become the first BGSU trio ever to finish with averages below 80 in the same season.

Wilson is also seeking to become the BGSU record-holder for scoring average by a freshman. Her per-round mark of 78.54 trails only Arnold on this year's team and is just an eyelash shy of the freshman record of 78.53. Like Arnold, she has three top-20 finishes this year and placed sixth at the Zippy Invitational, the team's most recent event.

DiFrancesco, BGSU's only senior, is having a career year. She owns the team's low score for an individual round this season with a 71 in the opening round of the Wolf Pack Women's Classic in Nevada. In that tournament, she shot a career-best 151 and placed seventh. Her 2011-12 average of 79.15 represents an improvement of over 5.5 strokes from her junior season.

Team captain Amy Ruthenberg is right on the heels of the top three with an 80.54 average and six rounds of 79 or better this season. Meanwhile, freshman Patricia Holt ended the fall with her best tournament. At the Zippy Invitational, she placed 13th overall with a 161 (81-80).

After the team's trip to South Carolina, the Falcons return to action by competing at the EKU Lady Colonel Classic during the first weekend of April. The team hosts the Dolores Black Falcon Invitational and competes against Ohio in the Spring Challenge Cup from April 14-16. Then, in five weeks, the team travels to Fishers, Ind. for the 2012 Mid-American Conference Championships.

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Falcons Return to the Links in South Carolina

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