Women's golf team looking for second regional title

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Junior Jenna Daniels practices on the chipping green at Tucson National. The UA women's golf team will attempt to take home its second consecutive NCAA West Regional title this week in Houston.

The No. 2-ranked Wildcats have placed in the top five in each of their nine tournaments this season, including a second place finish in last month's Pacific-10 Conference Championships.

Under the guidance of first year head coach Todd McCorkle, Arizona has been able to capture four tournament victories in the 1998-99 season, the Stanford Intercollegiate, the Golf World Invitational, the Arizona Invitational and the Rainbow Challenge.

The No. 2 player in the individual MasterCard Collegiate Rankings and Arizona's leader, junior Jenna Daniels, said she believes the Wildcats do possess the skills and momentum to defend their titles successfully.

"We've got a good chance," she said. "We'll see great teams like Duke, Stanford and Tulsa, but we're a team that steps it up when we need to."

Arizona's lineup for the 1999 NCAA West Regionals will include Daniels, plus Arizona's only senior Krissie Register (No. 18), freshmen Christina Baena (No. 14) and Jill Gomric (No. 16) and sophomore Christina Monteiro.

Daniels also explained the Wildcats have been working on their weaknesses in-depth leading into the last leg of the season.

"We've had a couple of days off before a couple of practices," she said. "We've really centralized on working on our weaknesses. Even though there are a lot of things going on in our lives, like finals, we were still able to get in some good practices."

Another important aspect of this week's tournament is that the top 10 teams will advance to the NCAA Women's Golf Championships May 19-22 in Tulsa, Okla.

The Wildcats will begin their road to repeat tomorrow, with play ending Saturday.

Jensen Karp can be reached at Jensen.Karp @wildcat.arizona.edu.