The six-member FIU women's golf team will enter 2016-17 competition with at minimum one freshman in the lineup every week, but that's good news and bad news for Head Coach Joe Vogel's squad. He will bring all six golfers to most of the tournaments the Panthers will play in for the season.
FIU will play in the state of Florida for five of the nine regular-season events on the schedule, and will once again host the Conference USA Championships in Fort Myers.
The Panthers finished in the top five in four of the events in which they participated last season, but landed sixth at the C-USA event, after fourth and second in the previous two league tournaments. Graduate
Meghan MacLaren was the bright spot at the end of the season, winning medalist honors at the championships and advancing to her third NCAA Regional, but the rest of the squad suffered an out-of-character finish, enough motivation to fuel the fires for this upcoming season.
"Our returners came in with a good attitude," said Vogel. "We're renewed. We have players who have won individual events and Camilla (Serrano) has a chance to be our first four-time Academic All-American. We have made it an open competition so players can play their way into the lineup."
In addition to in-state tournaments, FIU will play courses in states where the current squad has not visited. The schedule and locations are by design, noted Vogel, entering his 11th year with the program.
"We wanted to do some new things and some of these tournaments offer that," said Vogel. "This is our first time in Nebraska and at Memphis. We like to take them to different parts of the United States because you want to prepare for any kind of regional. You never know what part of the country you can be sent and you want to be prepared for everything."
The team's two seniors, Serrano and
Coralia Arias (Quito, Ecuador) will begin the year occupying the top two spots in the lineup. Junior
Katerina Krasova (Ricany, Czech Republic) should appear in the lineup, with redshirt freshman
Ana Maria Rengifo (Bogota, Columbia) and freshmen
Carolina Rotzinger (Puebla, Mexico) and
Diana Velez (Dorado, Puerto Rico) rounding out the squad.
The squad begins the season in the three-day Chip-N-Club Invitational, hosted by the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, starting Monday.
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports, and is a proud member of Conference USA. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including FIU Arena and the FIU Football Stadium.
About FIU: Florida International University is recognized as a Carnegie engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers more than 180 bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes $9.8 billion each year to the local economy. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission. FIU has awarded over 200,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and three centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, and the Miami Beach Urban Studios. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and has over 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.
