UNLV women headed East for NCAA regional

Adam Candee

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 | 9:43 a.m.

If there is such a thing as being too good for your own good, the UNLV women's golf team figured out how to do it.

Fresh from their first-ever win in the Mountain West Conference tournament, the Rebels played their way into a No. 5 seed in the NCAA regionals next week. The issue for UNLV coach Missy Ringler is that the Rebels will play in the East Region tournament at Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla.

Stepping off a plane from Oregon on Sunday night, Ringler said that her one hope for NCAA seeding was that the Rebels did not play themselves into a higher seed in the more distant East with their strong finish. UNLV moved up to No. 17 in the Golfweek national rankings and convinced the selection committee that they were ready for a big-time region featuring top-ranked Duke, Auburn, Oklahoma State and Wake Forest.

"It's not the competition or anything like that," Ringler said Monday after the seeding announcement. "The time change and the travel can be hard on you."

To combat those effects, the Rebels will arrive Monday for a tournament that begins Thursday. The top eight teams and top two individuals from non-qualifying teams in the regionals will advance to the NCAA championships in Opelika, Ala., from May 18-21.

The Rebels earned an automatic berth in the regionals by winning the MWC tournament. Last year, UNLV sweated out an at-large berth in the West regional, going in as the No. 10 seed with a national ranking of 31st. Sunny Oh, then just a freshman, won that tournament and advanced to nationals.

Oh won the MWC player of the year award this year and heads into regionals as one of the hottest players in the nation. Ringler credits Oh, the MWC individual champion, for spurring the team to its win.

"Sunny is so determined," Ringler said. "She wanted to win that thing from the get-go."

The Rebels' young lineup is performing at its highest level of the year, giving Ringler confidence that they can hang in the challenging East regional. She is focused not only on getting into nationals, but competing with the nation's best.

"We don't want to concentrate on the teams behind us," Ringler said. "We want to concentrate on the teams in front of us."

The Rebels defeated New Mexico to win the conference tournament. At that time, the Lobos were ranked fifth in the country and defeating New Mexico showed the Rebels that they can play with anyone, Ringler feels.

"This team doesn't really have any fear," Ringler said.