March 26, 2004

ATHENS, Ga.

Head Coach Judi Pavon's golf squad carded a solid round on the first day of the Liz Murphey Collegiate on the University of Georgia Golf Course in Athens, Ga., as the orange-clad linksters wound up in ninth place with a 304. Ohio State leads the tournament with a first-round 291, while Georgia and Duke are tied for second with a pair of 292s. Duke's Brittany Lang paced the first round for the second consecutive tournament with a 66.

"We had some pretty solid scores today," Pavon said. "We were just missing a low score. All the top teams had a low score and that is what we have been missing all year. We are getting there. We just hope to get better tomorrow."

As for the Big Orange, sophomore Violeta Retamoza (Aguascalientes, Mexico) and junior Jessica Shepley (Oakville, Ontario, Canada) paced Tennessee with a pair of 27th-place tying rounds of 75. Sophomore Golda Johansson (Lund, Sweden) and junior Teesha Ash (Chattanooga, Tenn.), who is playing as an individual, tied for 34th place by posting a pair of 76s, while freshman Holly Cantwell (Morristown, Tenn.) recorded a 78 to tie for 53rd place. Rounding out the UT effort, senior Mary Jan Fernandez (Henderson, Nev.) ended up in an 86th-place tie with an 83.

Next up, the Lady Vols come back for the second round of the Liz Murphey on Saturday, which begins at 9 a.m. ET. UT then concludes the tournament on Sunday with a shotgun start at 9 a.m.

* - played as an individual