Feb. 21, 2003

LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas Tech head women's golf coach Stacey Totman and the Lady Raiders trek to the Gulf Coast for the NCAA Central District Classic Mon.-Tue., Feb. 24-25, at River Wilderness Country Club in Parrish, Fla. The Lady Raiders are coming off of first-place finish at the Lady Aztec Spring Invitational outside of San Diego, Calif., last Tuesday.

"This is the best start we've gotten off to in the spring season in the last two years," Totman said. "The girls are playing well right now and with a lot of confidence. Although we won last week's tournament, we could have scored even better than the numbers show. We just need to keep the momentum going and play well next week."

Teams from the Big 12 Conference make up nearly half of the field next week. Among the participants in the 15-team field are 10, which rank among the nation's top 50, including 15th-ranked Ohio State and 19th-ranked Indiana. Others include Kent State (28), Baylor (29), Michigan State (35), Missouri (38), Kansas State (41), Northwestern (42), Illinois (47), Iowa State (48), Michigan (56), Nebraska (60), Texas A&M (70), Texas Tech (76) and Minnesota (82). Michigan State is the tournament host. The rankings do not reflect Texas Tech's team win at the beginning of the week.

Megan Hull (Mansfield, Texas/Mansfield), who finished in a 16th-place tie last weekend and is averaging 77.9 strokes on the season, leads Texas Tech. Jackie Ey (San Antonio, Texas) is coming off of the fourth-best single-round total in school history after shooting a 69 in the final round last weekend to finish in a career-best fifth-place tie.

Rounding out Texas Tech's roster for the event are Kim Kolb (Sioux Falls, S.D./O'Gorman), Sheila Mendez (El Paso, Texas/Franklin) and Hazel Tan (Sarasota, Fla./Bradenton Academy). All three recorded their highest career finishes earlier this week at the Lady Aztec Spring Invitational.