UNLV teams ranked in preseason poll

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

The UNLV men's golf team has been ranked eighth in the nation in the 2005-06 Golfweek preseason rankings, the magazine has announced.

The team, under head coach Dwaine Knight, who is in his 19th year at UNLV, is led by 2005 honorable mention All-America Ryan Keeney and Andres Gonzales, who both return for their senior seasons.

The team returns nine players from last year's squad that won three tournaments including the NCAA West Regional and finished tied for eighth at the 2005 NCAA Championship. Four newcomers, who made up the fourth-best recruiting class in the country, join the Rebels this fall.

Defending national champion Georgia tops the rankings and is followed by Oklahoma State, Florida, Duke, Wake Forest, Arizona State, USC, UNLV, Washington and BYU.

UNLV opens the 2005-06 season this Friday at the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate in Albuquerque.

Meanwhile, the UNLV women's golf team was ranked 14th in the country in Golfweek's 2005-06 preseason poll the magazine announced, and it is the highest ranking ever for the Rebels in the five years of the program.

The Rebels have won the last two Mountain West Conference championships under the guidance of head coach Missy Ringler and open up their season at the Dick McGuire Invitational on Sept. 26-28 in Albuquerque, N.M. UNLV returns three players from last year's championship lineup and five letterwinners overall.

"I am extremely excited about the ranking and to be in the preseason top 15," Ringler said. "We have a very solid team and hopefully we will climb toward the top 10."

The Rebels also had two players honored by Golfweek, as senior Elena Kurokawa was named to the publication's preseason third team and Da Sol Chung was named as one of eight freshmen in the country to watch.

Kurokawa had a strong junior year last season as she was named the 2004-05 Mountain West Conference Player of the Year after earning medalist honors at the Mountain West Conference Championship. She fired a career low 67 (-4) at the Spartan Invitational, which was tied for the second-lowest round by score and par in Rebel history and she finished her year with a 74.56 scoring average, the second-lowest single-season average on record. Kurokawa, a native of Redondo Beach, Calif., was named the league's golfer of the month twice and finished in the top 10 in six tournaments.