April 15, 2004

The 28th-ranked University of South Carolina women’s golf team will challenge for the 2004 SEC Championship, April 16-18th, at the University Club in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The 54-hole, 6,300-yard tournament will begin Friday at 8:30 a.m. and will run through Sunday’s final round. The conference champion will earn an automatic invite to the 2004 NCAA Golf Regionals in May. Each team is comprised of five golfers with the best four scores counting towards the team’s total score each day.

Last year, Auburn grabbed the 2003 SEC team title from South Carolina, the 2002 champion, at the University Club in Lexington, Kentucky. Florida’s Aimee Cho returns as the defending champion after shooting an even par 216 in last year’s event.

The Gamecocks will be represented by Adrienne Gautreaux, Erica Battle, Kory Thompson, Jenna Pearson and Marci Robinson with three of the five USC golfers (Battle, Thompson and Pearson) participating in their first SEC Championships.

All 12 SEC teams are ranked in the top 78 in the GolfWeek/Sagarin Poll, with eight teams in the top 30 (#5 Georgia, #7 Vanderbilt, #10 Auburn, #13 Florida, #21 Tennessee, #25 LSU, #28 South Carolina, #29 Arkansas).

Results from each day’s competition will be posted on the South Carolina website (www.uscsports.com) after the completion of each round. Fans can follow the SEC Championship by watching the live hole-by-hole coverage on the Golf Stat website (www.golfstat.com).

South Carolina tees off Friday at 8:30 a.m. from hole number one with Vanderbilt and Arkansas.