April 25, 2012

Contact: Greg Murphy

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland State women's golf team will compete in the Horizon League Championship from Friday through Sunday (April 27-29) at the par-73, 5,884-yard Mission Inn Resort.

This is the second consecutive season that the league championship in being played in Florida.

"This is what we have been working toward all season," head coach Steve Weir said. "We are excited to get down to Florida, see the course and put in our final preparations for the championship. We have had a very good week of practice and fine-tuning our games and I am excited to see how we fare this weekend."

At last year's championship, the Vikings finished fourth, carding rounds of 338-332-334 (1,004), just four shots behind runner-up Loyola. Butler won the title at 975, while Detroit was the runner-up with a 54-hole total of 983.

Ariel Sparrow paced the Vikings, placing third overall with a 237 total that included rounds of 83-80-74. Her final round 74 included an eagle two on the par-4, 11th hole.

Sparrow has been CSU's top golfer all season and enters the championship with an 81.2 scoring average, including a season-low round of 73. She also has four top-20 finishes.

Madeline Kaminski is averaging 82.2, while Shelly Ford enters the tournament with an 83.4 scoring average.

CSU was last in action on April 14-15 at the Bowling Green Falcon Invitational, finishing 10th of 12 teams.

The winner of the league championship will receive the Horizon League's automatic bid to the NCAA regionals which will take place from May 10-12 at three locations, State College, Pa., Columbus, Ohio and Erie, Colo.