UA women's golf team strives for championship

The No. 2-ranked Wildcats are on a recent hot streak, and seem to be focused on taking home the Pac-10 trophy.

Last weekend Arizona placed third at the Ping/ASU Invitational in Tempe trailing behind host Arizona State and top-ranked Duke.

UA senior Krissie Register and junior Jill Gomric individually led the team by tying for 15th place, shooting 13-over-par.

In addition to their impressive finish in Tempe, this season the Wildcats finished first at the Hawaii Rainbow Challenge, the Arizona Invitational, the Golf World Invitational and the Stanford Intercollegiate. With the success the team has achieved in this season's tournaments, junior Shannon Ingalls believes it can only have a positive effect going into the postseason.

"We are really feeling confident," she said, "and we're playing well as a team. We just have to do what we've been doing and hope the success will carry over."

Ingalls also said she hopes their play at Pac-10s will lead to a victory at the NCAA Championships.

"The ultimate goal of the team has been to be the national champs," she said, "but we just want to play well (at the Pac-10 tournament) and make a run step-by-step."

Men's golf places ninth in tourney

The Arizona men's golf team had another mediocre ninth place finish at the Compaq U.S. Golf Championships in Lecanto, Fla., this weekend. The struggling Wildcats finished the three-day event with a score of 881, 17-over-par.

The tournament was won by UNLV, which finished with a 25-under-par 839, led by the tournament's individual leader Chris Berry. Berry finished the tournament tied with Oklahoma's Hunter Hass with an 8-under-par 208, but was able to take home the individual trophy in a one-hole sudden death playoff.

Arizona's lowest score was carded by junior Derek Gillespie, who finished even par with a score of 216 and in a four-way tie for the 18th slot. Andy Barnes followed in a five-way tie for 27th with a 3-over-par total of 219.

Gillespie hopes his teammates can forget about their recent slump and focus on the their upcoming events.

"(The team) is extremely disappointed since we can't get anything together," he said.

"We're getting off on bad starts and we're always playing catch-up."

Although the Wildcats have had a tough time recently, Gillespie understands the true test begins in the postseason, where the Wildcats will compete at the Pac-10 and NCAA Championships.

"I'm really focused on the team's play right now," he said. "We're getting ready cause our coach always says, 'The trophies aren't given out until May and June.'"