April 21, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - After an eighth place finish in the last regular season tournament of the year at the Lady Buckeye, the Penn State women's golf team will now participate in the Big Ten Championships. The tournament, hosted by Northwestern in Chicago, Ill., will be played from Fri.-Sun., April 22-24 and will consist of 72 holes. Penn State finished 10th there last season.
"The team is encouraged from the last tournament after beating three Big Ten schools in some very tough playing conditions," said head coach Denise St. Pierre. "We know we have to be patient with 72 holes to play. I feel it will be a tight race top to bottom."
Sophomore Emily Ransone (Hilliard, Ohio) is coming off of her fourth top-10 finish of the season as she took sixth place at the Lady Buckeye last weekend. She leads the team heading into the Big Ten Championships with an average of 76.1 strokes-per-round. Hanule Seo (St. Louis, Mo.) is the other sophomore competing for the Nittany Lions, as she brings her 78.3 average. She had the best finish for the Nittany Lions at this tournament last year with a tie for 32nd place.
Gia Fanelli (West Palm Beach, Fla.) and Giulia Carando (Torino, Italy) will make their final starts for Penn State as the two seniors competing. Freshmen Ellen Ceresko (Jefferson Township, Pa.) and Christina Vosters (Bethany Beach, Del.) round out the field for the Nittany Lions.
The tournament will consist of the 11 teams from the Big Ten. It will be played at the par 72, 6,303-yard Lake Shore Country Club. There will be 36 holes played on the first day and 18 on each of the last two days. The format is play six, count four. Live scoring will be available at www.golfstat.com.
The field: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Wisconsin.