May 8th, 2008
Texas State Travels To NCAA Central Regional Championships

The Texas State women’s golf team plays in the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Regional Championships for the first time in school history when the Bobcats travel to Austin, Texas, and play in the 2008 NCAA Central Regional Championship on May 8-10. The top eight teams and top two individuals not on the eight qualifying teams will advance to the 2008 NCAA Championship set for May 20-23 in Albuquerque, N.M.NCAA Division I Central Regional Championship

The NCAA Central Regional Championship will be played at the University of Texas Golf Club on a par 72, 6,301-yard course.

UCLA enters the Central Regional as the top-ranked team after the Bruins finished the regular season ranked No. 2 by the Golfworld/Nike Coaches poll. Purdue is seeded as the No. 2 team in the Regional, while Alabama is the No. 3 seed and Denver is No. 4.

The other Top 10 seeded teams at the Regional include: Kent State, Pepperdine, LSU, Texas A&M, Notre Dame and Texas.

The rest of the field includes TCU, Florida State, North Carolina State, East Tennessee State, Texas Tech, Washington, Nebraska, Harvard, Texas State, Illinois State and Fairleigh Dickinson.

There also are three players playing as individual competitors at the Central Regional Championships. They include Steffi Kirchmayr from the College of Charleston, Sara Wikstrom of Arkansas and Araceli Felgueroso of Coastal Carolina.

Bobcats Head To First NCAA Regional

Texas State will play in their first NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Regional Championship after winning the 2008 Southland Conference Tournament April 21-23 in Beaumont, Texas. The Bobcats enter the tournament having won two tournaments this season, and have six Top Five finishes in 10 tournaments this year.

Texas State During 2007-08

Texas State began the 2007-08 campaign winning Nebraska’s Chip-N-Club Invitational, recorded a second-place showing at Florida’s Gainesville Shootout, third-place finishes at Kansas State’s Sunflower Invitational and Texas State’s Claude Jacobs Intercollegiate. The Bobcats also tied for fourth place at the Arkansas-Little Rock Invitational.

Bright Future

Texas State enters the NCAA Central Regional Championships with a lineup that includes the top freshman class in the nation according to Golfstat.com. The Bobcats lead the nation with an average score of 77.59 per round among first-year collegiate players. They are Linn Gustafsson, Caitlin Bliss, Sehee Kim and Trine Mortensen.

Texas State under head coach Mike Akers

It hasn’t taken second-year head coach Mike Akers to take Texas State’s women’s golf program to new heights after leading the Bobcats to a Southland Conference Tournament championship and first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division I Regional Championships in 2008. Those feats resulted in Akers being named the Southland Conference Coach of the Year. Overall, it was Texas State’s second tournament victory, and the Bobcats recorded six Top Five finishes in the 10 tournaments on their schedule.

In May 2007, the Golf Channel ranked his 2007 recruiting class one of the nation’s Top 5 classes and this past fall, golfstat.com named Texas State’s freshman class the best in the country.

In addition, between Oct. 2006 and Oct. 2007, the Texas State women’s golf team moved up 100 places to become one of the Top 50 programs in the country.

Akers came to Texas State in September 2006, after serving as the assistant coach for both the UCF men and women’s golf programs. He also spent one season as a volunteer assistant for the women’s program at Middle Tennessee. Akers also was the associate head coach at his Alma mater, Fort Hays State in Kansas for eight seasons. There, he helped develop the best program in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

Southland Conference Freshmen of the Year

Texas State’s Linn Gustafsson was named the Southland Conference Freshman of the Year after winning individual medalist honors at the SLC Tournament and Chip-N-Club tournament at Lincoln, Neb. She won the Southland Conference Tournament after setting a tournament record with a three-day total of 220. She also had seven Top 10 finishes in the nine tournaments in which she competed and has lowest average score in the SLC with a 74.50 average per round.

By RICK POULTER
Sports Information Director