Columnist Victoria Sun: UNLV women’s team taking small steps

Victoria Sun

Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2002 | 10:40 a.m.

Victoria Sun is a Las Vegas Sun sportswriter. She can be reached at victoria@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4078.

It wasn't an ideal debut.

The UNLV women's golf team experienced growing pains in its first three tournaments last fall, the highlight being a 10th-place finish at the Oregon State Shanico Invitational after the team found itself in eighth place following the first round.

No one ever said it would be easy building a golf program from scratch, even though Las Vegas is an ideal place for it.

But good weather and an abundance of supportive courses notwithstanding, it will be a few years before this team is mentioned in the same breath as SEC, ACC and Pac-10 powers.

"Our daily goal is to leave practice a better golfer than when we got there, whether that's on the driving range, playing a round or practicing on the green," head coach Kelly Hester said. "That's our mentality."

This weekend the team heads to San Diego to compete in the Lady Aztec Invitational, the first tournament of the spring season.

Tina Mabanta, Hwanhee Lee, Erin Borcherts, Christine Hentzner of Bishop Gorman and Ayeesha Kosugi qualified for the trip after playing a total of 54 holes at the Rio Secco Golf Club, TPC at the Canyons and the Legacy Golf Club.

UNLV's best golfer, Young Pak, won't make the trip. Pak, a freshman who went to Gahr High School in Cerritos, Calif., was ruled ineligible a week before the season started. It was discovered that Pak needed to take a different math class from the one she had already completed, even though Pak was told her class would count.

Hester spent most of the first semester trying to get Pak eligible, but to no avail.

Pak was ruled a partial qualifier, forcing her to sit out this season. She will have three full years of eligibility next beginning next year.

"We were a little disappointed that she wasn't eligible," Hester said. "It wasn't her fault at all. The result is we're a little thin, moreso in our four and five spot. Young has led almost every qualifying."

The adversity, Hester believes, will make her team wiser and stronger.

"We've improved a great deal," she said. "They work hard every day.

"I told them don't worry about other teams, work on making yourself better because that's how we'll get better as a team."

UNLV is ranked 85th in the country in the latest Golfweek rankings.

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