The NCAA News - News and Features

May 12, 1997

Divisions II and III

Monarchs downplay role of favorite

Event: 1997 Divisions II and III Women's Golf Championships.

Overview: Methodist won last year's inaugural team championship, but Monarchs coach Karen Gray is trying to convince her squad to forget about being defending champions. "I've told them that they'll be called defending champions, but it's really not that way because they earned that last year -- it's a brand new mountain to climb." The Monarchs' trek starts with returning players Jennifer Cieslak, Diane Gladstone and Tracey Gage, along with newcomers Betsy Hannah and Tanice Nilson. Gray hopes those five will gel during the championships. "Our scores have been up and down in tournaments this year," she said. "So we'll need to build some consistency during the four days at the NCAAs" .... Several Division II powers await to exact revenge on the Division III Monarchs. Three of them are from the same region and will be battling for two team berths. The most powerful of those teams may be Lynn, which features 1995 and 1996 NAIA medalists Josefine Stalvant and Zoe Grimbeek. Both boast stroke averages below 79 and could help the Knights claim the crown in their first year as a member of Division II .... Rollins, which lost last year's crown by a stroke to Methodist after taking a four-shot lead into the final round, returns Jennifer Tollette and Shruti Khanna, both top-10 finishers last year. They placed Nos. 1 and 2 in the recent Mobile Classic and have three other top-10 finishes between them .... Florida Southern returns Shanna Nagy, last year's medalist, and Kristen Hommel, who tied for 15th. Nagy has finished in the top five in her last three tournaments and has won the Northern Illinois Snowbird Invitational.

Field: Twenty-seven golfers from Division II and 36 from Division III will be in the championships field of 63 participants.

Dates and site: The championships will be May 14-17 at the El Campeone Course at the Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida. Rollins and the Orlando Sports Commission will serve as cohosts.

Information/results: The fax-on-demand telephone number is 770/399-3060 (passcode 1915 for NCAA institutions and passcode 1925 for the general public); request numbers are 5106 for first-round results, 5107 for second-round results, 5108 for third-round results and 5109 for final-round results. Individual and team results also will be available on the World Wide Web at www.ncaa.org. Championships results will appear in the May 26 issue of The NCAA News.