Purdue women's golf at NCAA Championships

FRANKLIN, Tn. (WLFI) - The 29th-ranked Purdue women’s golf team is headed to its 13th-consecutive NCAA Championships, a streak matched by only two other Division I schools, Arizona State and Southern California.

The tournament will be held at the Vanderbilt Legends Club North Course on May 22 to 25, with practice rounds on Sunday, May 20 and Monday, May 21.

Twenty-four teams and six individuals will compete at the 2012 NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championships in search of the team and individual titles.

Top-ranked and defending national champion UCLA leads the field again this season, but there are a host of teams expected to challenge the Bruins. No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Southern California, No. 4 Arizona State, No. 5 LSU, No. 6 North Carolina, No. 8 Duke, No. 9 Vanderbilt (host), No. 10 Colorado, No. 12 Florida, No. 15 Tennessee, No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 17 Baylor, No. 19 South Carolina, No. 20 Ohio State, No. 21 Michigan State, No. 23 Pepperdine, No. 24 N.C. State, No. 25 Virginia, No. 26 Texas, No. 28 Oklahoma, No. 31 Arkansas and No. 34 Stanford all join No. 29 Purdue in the field of 24.

The individuals include two golfers from Texas Tech: Gabby Dominguez and Kim Kaufman, along with Margarita Ramos from Arizona, Maria Salinas from Florida State, freshman Rocio Sanchez Lobato from Georgia and Kelsey Vines from Oklahoma State.

Purdue head coach Devon Brouse has led the Boilermakers to a top 10 finish each of the last six seasons, including the school’s first women’s golf national championship in 2010 and a runner up finish in 2011. In addition to the team’s success, Maria Hernandez won the individual title as a senior in 2009 and Christel Boeljon tied for second place in 2007. The Boilermakers finished in second place as a team in 2007 as well.

Purdue is led by a pair of juniors, Big Ten Player of the Year, Laura Gonzalez-Escallon who is ranked No. 20 as an individual by Golfweek and Paula Reto, the 28th-ranked individual. Gonzalez-Escallon won her second Big Ten Championships medal on April 29, which was the fifth-straight for Purdue and helped the Boilermakers to a second-place finish. The La Hulpe, Belgium, native turned in the best finish for the Boilermakers at the NCAA Central Regional, tying for 10th place. Reto finished in 13th at the NCAA Regional and has won two tournaments this season. She set the Purdue single-round and 54-hole tournament records when she fired a 64 for a 207 to win the Lady Jaguar Intercollegiate on March 18.

Junior Kishi Sinha and freshmen Aurora Kan and Vicky Scherer will round out the five-golfer team for Purdue. Sinha is averaging 76.5 strokes per round and her best finish of the season was a tie for eighth at the Lady Jaguar Intercollegiate. Kan has a 78.9 stroke average and has three top-40 finishes this season, including a tie for 40th at the Big Ten Championships. Scherer joined the team in January and had the best showing of her young career at Big Tens with a tie for 14th. She is averaging 78.2 strokes per round.

Purdue will be paired with Texas and Pepperdine in the first and second rounds and will tee off from hole No. 10 beginning at 1:03 p.m. ET on Tuesday.  On Wednesday, the trio will have the first tee times of the day, teeing off at hole No. 1 beginning at 8:30 a.m. Thursday and Friday’s tee times are based on team standings.

Live action from the NCAA Championships will be available via a daily webcast for all four rounds of the tournament on NCAA.com, starting with the first round Tuesday, May 22, through the final round Friday, May 25. Holes No. 9 and No. 18 will be streamed each day and a 30-minute recap will be provided once play has concluded at the end of each day of competition.

Live scoring will be available on golfstatresults.com and scoring and weather updates will be available on Twitter at @NCAAWGolf12. If you want to join the conversation, the hashtag is #NCAAWGolf12. Daily recaps will be posted at purduesports.com.