Women's Golf Hosts 2017 Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Championship

Sunday, February 19

New Orleans (English Turn C.C.)

9 a.m. CT

Tulane University

Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Championship

Women's Golf Hosts 2017 Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Championship

Feb 17, 2017 | Women's Golf

Top Teams, Individuals Converge on the Crescent City

2017 ALLSTATE SUGAR BOWL INTERCOLLEGIATE GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP
When:	Feb. 19-21, 2017
Where:	English Turn Golf & Country Club \| New Orleans
Host:	Tulane \| Championship Central
Field:	Arizona, UCF, Clemson, Denver, Florida, Houston, LSU, Miami (Fla.), Mississippi State Oklahoma State, Oregon, Stanford, Texas, UTSA, Tulane, Virginia, Washington
Live Stats:	GolfStat.com
Tee Times:	First Round \| Second Round \| Third Round
Social Media:	Twitter: @GreenWaveWGolf \| Facebook: /GreenWaveWGolf Instagram: @GreenWaveWGolf

NEW ORLEANS – The Tulane women's golf team rolls out the olive and green carpet for 16 of the nation's top teams and individuals for the 2017 Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Golf Championship at English Turn Golf & Country Club.

The 54-hole tournament begins with the first round on Sunday at 9 a.m. Monday's second round also begins at 9 a.m. with Tuesday's final round set to begin at 8 a.m. This long-standing, three-day event is in its seventh year being hosted by the Green Wave and held at English Turn.

This year's Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate field once again features many of the top teams in the country, headlined by No. 1 ranked Stanford and reigning NCAA champion and No. 65 ranked Washington. Among this year's 17 teams are seven of the top 25 and nine of the top 50 teams in the nation in the most recent Golfstat.com Rankings. The Cardinal leads the way at the top spot, followed by No. 3 Florida, No. 11 Miami (Fla.), No. 19 UCF, No. 20 Oklahoma State, No. 21 Texas and No. 23 Arizona. Rounding out the 16 teams traveling to the Crescent City are No. 39 Oregon, No. 43 Clemson, No. 51 Denver, No. 52 Virginia, No. 55 Mississippi State, No. 57 Houston, No. 74 UTSA and No. 88 LSU.

Among the individuals, 10 of the nation's top 50 golfers are set to participate with four of last year's top 10 finishers returning. LSU's Sydney Calvin shared individual medalist honors with Michigan State's Sarah Burnham a year ago and joins Texas' Hayley Mills (T3rd in 2016), Florida's Karolina Vlckova (T3rd) and Mississippi State's Jessica Peng (T7th) among the top returners vying to be this year's top individual.

"We can't thank the Allstate Sugar Bowl enough for allowing us to host this tournament," said head coach Lorne Don. "It's become one of the premier events in women's college golf and we're just so excited to have the field that we do. We've built the tradition of having a great event. For our players to have a chance to compete against this quality level of teams and individuals on our home golf course is just something we really do look forward to."

Tulane enters the tournament ranked 76th and is slated to open play with the lineup of freshman Gabrielle Correia at No. 1, senior Belen Goicoechea at No. 2, freshman Haydyn Gibson at No. 3, redshirt freshman Elise Genoux at No. 4 and sophomore Sofia Goicoechea at No. 5 with sophomores Laura Munoz and Abbie Cantwell and freshman Ebba Bjornberg playing as individuals.

The Green Wave have fared fairly well in their home tournament over the last six years with three, top-five team finishes in 2011 (T3rd), 2014 (4th) and 2015 (T4th) and two, top-five individual finishes in 2011 (Maribel Lopez Porras, T5th) and 2013 (Emily Penttila, T5th).

For similar or better success in this year's event, Don said his squad must build from the positives from the team's first spring tournament, the UCF Challenge, two weeks ago.

"I thought there were so many great things from (the) UCF (Challenge)," added Don. "We talked about consistency going into that event and we started to see that. We had solid performances top to bottom, for the most part, throughout the tournament. We just needed a couple of shots here and there and we would have finished quite a few spots higher on the leaderboard.

"We've just been working for the last week and a half on the things we needed to work on from the six that did play at UCF. We've been focusing on those things, making sure they are familiar with the course and preparing to play well at home."

Next up after the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate, Tulane heads to The Woodlands, Texas, on Feb. 27-28 for the Cougar Invitational hosted by Houston.