EL PASO, Texas – The UTEP women's golf team will open the 2018-19 season at the MSU/Payne Stewart Memorial on Monday and Tuesday in Springfield, Mo.
"We are very excited for this season," said head coach
Jere Pelletier. "I'm very confident in our team this year. We've played well in the past at this tournament and should be a familiar course for our players."
It is the first of five fall tournaments for the Miners, who will also participate in the Pirate Collegiate Classic (Sept. 17-18 in Greenville, N.C.), the Wyoming Cowgirl Desert Intercollegiate (Sept. 29-30 in Palm Desert, Calif.), the Aggie Invitational (Oct. 8-10 in Las Cruces, N.M.) and the Little Rock Classic (Oct. 28-30 in Hot Springs Village, Ark.).
The Miners are coming off a strong 2017-18 campaign, which included a second-place finish at the Conference USA Championships. The Orange and Blue finished with three top-five finishes during the fall season last year.
The tournament will be played at the par-71, 6.000-yard Twin Oaks Country Club. Thirty-six holes will be played on Monday and 18 holes on Tuesday.
School competing include, Creighton, Arkansas State, Memphis, Murray State, Omaha, Wichita State, Southern Illinois, Little Rock, Oklahoma City and Oral Roberts.
The Miners return seven letter winners (
Abbie Anghelescu,
Lily Downs,
Crystal Wu,
Valeria Mendizabal,
Audrey Haddad,
Taylor Stone and
Shannon O'Dwyer) while adding two newcomers (
Andrea Ostos and
Naomi Ramirez).
Downs, Anghelescu, Mendizabal, Haddad and Wu are in Pelletier's lineup for the first tournament of the season.
The Miners will lean on veterans Downs (74.1 scoring average in 2017-18) and Anghelescu (75.5) for leadership this season.
The Orange and Blue finished third overall with a score of 896 in last year's Payne Stewart Memorial. Downs finished 11th overall (224, 77-73-74) and Anghelescu registered a 22nd place showing (226, 75-76-75).
