Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003 | 10:31 a.m.
Anthem Country Club is beginning to rival Albuquerque as home for the New Mexico women's golf team.
Not even a steady rain and difficult playing conditions Wednesday could slow New Mexico in its march to a second consecutive victory in the Las Vegas Founders Women's Collegiate Showdown, hosted by the UNLV women's golf team.
The Lobos, ranked No. 6 in the country by Golfweek, carded a 5-over 293 on the par-72, 6,194-yard course to best second-place Tennessee by a sound margin of 18 strokes. New Mexico's Katrina Leckovic finished at 3-under to claim individual medalist honors by two strokes over Missouri's Maria Ohlsson. Leckovic posted her second consecutive round of even-par 72 Wednesday to hang onto her second-round lead.
UNLV coach Missy Ringler is used to seeing such strong performance out of the Rebels' Mountain West Conference opponent.
"They're just a very solid team, one through five," Ringler said. "They'll be our biggest foe come springtime."
The winter officially begins now for the UNLV squad, which finished seventh out of 15 teams at 39-over. The Rebels finished second in their inaugural home tournament a year ago and Ringler left with mixed feelings about her team's 2003 showing.
"We played kind of the same as we have in previous tournaments," Ringler said. "Of course, we're disappointed that we didn't finish a little bit better."
UNLV posted a pair of top-15 finishes. Both Hwanhee Lee and Sunny Oh carded scores of 6-over 222 to tie for 14th, with Lee shooting a 76 and Oh posting a 71 in the final round. Young Pak, Seema Sadekar, and Tina Mabanta all finished tied for 43rd at 18-over 234, with Mabanta playing as an individual and not counting toward the Rebels' team final round of 301.
Ringler points to the flat stick as the source of the Rebels' mediocre finish both in Las Vegas and elsewhere.
"We're having some problems with our putting and it's showing in our scores," Ringler said.
Entering the tournament, UNLV was ranked 25th in the nation and Ringler expects to finish the fall somewhere near that spot. UNLV won its opening tournament this season and then finished in the middle of the pack a number of times.
Ringler hopes not to place too much emphasis on the mild struggles of Oh -- her sophomore All-American -- or the rest of the team.
"We know this team has a lot of talent," Ringler said. "We're a much better team than we've been performing. We'll sit down now and figure out what it is we need to work on."
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