Women's golf team continues season in Tennessee

By: Michael Sullivan

Posted: 10/10/08

The No. 19-ranked Texas A&M women's golf team is hitting the greens again to compete in the Mercedes Benz Collegiate Championships in Knoxville, Tennessee beginning Friday. The Aggies are coming off of a 6th place finish at the Tar Heel Invitational last week.

Head Coach Trelle McCombs said the team will look to carry momentum from the Invitational into this week's tournament to fuel success. Although winning the Mercedes Benz tournament is the goal, McCombs said winning is not the focus

"Our expectation is to strive to do our best," McCombs said. "If we think about winning, we tend to get ahead of ourselves. We are going to focus on the process, and the results will take care of themselves."

Out of the 18-team field, A&M will face six other ranked opponents including No. 10 North Carolina, No. 12 Denver, No. 18 Louisiana State, No. 20 Louisville, No. 21 Kent State and No. 24 Arkansas.

McCombs said playing in back-to-back weeks will benefit the Aggies because the younger players are getting the chance to play again and fix mistakes from the previous week.

"Having time off allows us to teach our new players expectations," McCombs said. "I'm excited that we are playing within a few days, it helps us to keep building on what we have learned."

The Aggies fourth and fifth positions have struggled in the previous two tournaments, raising the team score. During the NCAA Fall Preview the fourth and fifth spots were a combined 21 strokes behind the top three finishers for the Aggies.

Last week at the Tar Heel Invitational the fourth and fifth spots struggled again, finishing a combined 23 strokes behind the Aggies' top three finishers. However during the final round of the Invitational the margin between the top three spots and the four and five spots was just one stroke.

McCombs said this week's tournament will look similar to the final round of the Tar Heel Invitational.

"Our four and five spots are learning what we do and have especially learned from last weekend," McCombs said. "I look for our top three spots to be our top five spots."

Playing the fourth spot on the team has been the true freshman Crystal Reeves. In Reeves' final two rounds of the Tar Heel Invitational her score improved twelve strokes compared to her first round. Reeves said she expects she will continue to learn this weekend and see her score and the team's score continue to drop.

"I was figuring some things out last weekend and my score didn't reflect how well I was playing," Reeves said. "I'm expecting to have my scores count, but when someone has a bad round someone else has to follow up with a lower round. We are looking for a tournament when no one has to score a lower round."