Sunday, October 12, 2008

            GREENSBORO, N.C. (Oct. 12, 2008) - With junior Laura Jansone (Jurmala, Latvia) participating in the World Amateur this weekend, the ETSU women's golf team entered the UNCA-Starmount Fall Classic with the goal of making a run at the team title even without the services of Jansone, the defending Atlantic Sun Conference champion who already has one individual win to her credit this season.

            The Buccaneers certainly made a respectable show of it Sunday during the first round at the Starmount Country Club, firing a first round 304 to stand tied for fifth place following the first day of action. East Carolina leads the event and is nine strokes better than the Bucs.

            Key for the Bucs in this event was getting solid play from top to bottom, and junior Sinead O'Sullivan (Galway, Ireland) certainly got things on track with a 1-over-par 73 to finish tied for fourth on the individual leaderboard. Meanwhile, fellow junior Kennie Leigh Eisenhower (Newport, Tenn.) posted a 76 to tie for 22^nd and help power ETSU.

            "I was very proud of the team for having such strong showings with Laura out," said ETSU head coach Stefanie Shelton. "I was really happy with Sinead and Kennie Leigh. They were both very solid all day long and really helped put us in position to contend. I think after the practice round the course seemed to be playing very difficult, but today we showed that it's scoreable. Hopefully that will just continue to improve over the next two days."

            Along with O'Sullivan and Eisenhower, teammates Mayte Vizcarrondo (Cadiz, Spain), Malin Mansson (Kalmar, Sweden) and Lucy Gould (Bargoed, Wales) finished tied for 30^th, 36^th, and 70^th, respectively.

            The Bucs will continue play with second round action scheduled for Monday and the third round set for Tuesday. Fans can watch live scoring by visiting Golfstat.com, or read a complete wrap up of the day's play at ETSUBucs.com.