MELISSA HALTERMAN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Katie Christy and the Wildcats head to Tempe this weekend for the PING/ASU Invitational.

For the Arizona women's golf team, one word sums up the way spring semester has unfolded: disappointing.

The Wildcats have a chance this week at the Ping/ASU Invitational to savor what has been a total turnaround after a fall semester that included their lone win of the season at the Edean Ihlanfeldt Invitational.

"I told the girls that the spring season starts right now," head coach Greg Allen said. "It doesn't matter what happened the last three times out - this is where we start gaining momentum for the postseason."

The last time Arizona teed it up was at the Betsey Rawls Longhorn Invitational, where the Wildcats skidded to a ninth-place finish.

The UA was without its top player, sophomore Erica Blasberg, during the tournament in Austin, Texas, but heads into the Tempe tournament with a full lineup and needing a win.

"Erica looked really confident today," Allen said. "She made a lot of putts. And she needs her confidence because she has hit good putts for the last three months, and none have gone in."

The one positive the team pulled from the Betsey Rawls was the impressive play of sophomore Cassandra Kirkland, who finished in a tie for seventh, her second top 10 of the year.

Allen compared this team to his team of two years ago, which went to the Betsey Rawls without Lorena Ochoa and finished the season with a win at the Pac-10 Championships and a runner-up finish at the NCAA Championship.

"April is when this program seems to start to peak," Allen said.

As the Wildcats enter their final event of the regular season, Allen said he is confident his team knows what it needs to do.

"I feel like our chemistry is really good right now," he said. "We had a good practice round (yesterday). We were all focused for 18 holes and still had some fun out there."

The team will be facing a field that includes eight of the top 20 teams in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index. The teams to watch are UCLA (2), California (5) and New Mexico (6).

Arizona dropped all the way to 10th in the rankings after the Texas tournament, with Blasberg ranked second individually, one spot behind Duke's Elizabeth Janangelo.

The Wildcats tee it up at Karsten Golf Course on the Arizona State campus this morning for the 54-hole event.

"I really think this is our turning point," Allen said.

Sophomore Blasberg to return for junior year

Blasberg is postponing her LPGA career for another year at the University of Arizona, head coach Greg Allen said.

The Corona, Calif., native has won five tournaments in her first two years at Arizona, including three in a row during the fall semester.

"She said she is coming back next year," Allen said after a practice round yesterday.

Last semester, Blasberg told the Wildcat she was considering leaving school to play professional golf at the end of the season. She was ranked the top female golfer in the nation at the time.

Blasberg has competed in two LPGA events this spring, missing the cut in both. She was offered sponsor's exemptions for both the Welch's/Fry Championship in Tucson and the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Blasberg shot rounds of 75-71 at the Welch's/Fry, missing the cut by four shots, and rounds of 82-77 at the Kraft, missing the cut by eight shots.

Blasberg will be the leader of a team that prides itself on the 2006 class, having used six different sophomores in its starting rotation throughout the year.