The FIU women's golf program will attempt to make a return to the NCAA Regionals as a unit when the Panthers compete in the Conference USA Championships, held Monday through Wednesday at the Verandah Club in Fort Myers, Florida. The 54-hole event will feature three-straight days of 18 holes at the Old Orange Course. The Panthers will be paired with Middle Tennessee and UTEP and tee off in the opening group from the first tee at 8 a.m. The tournament will play with split tees, with some groups going off on the 10
th hole each day.
Pairings will reset after the first and second rounds, with the leading teams going off last from the first tee at approximately 8:50 a.m.
The Panthers finished sixth at last year's championships, and come in this season ranked fourth among C-USA programs by Golfstat, at 75 in the country. ODU (63), Southern Miss (73) and UTSA (74) barely sit ahead of the Panthers according to those rankings. The winner of the tournament will earn the conference's automatic big to the NCAA Regionals, though teams and individuals can earn at-large entries if selected by the NCAA golf committee.
FIU's top five golfers this season will represent the Panthers in Fort Myers. Senior
Camila Serrano (Bogota, Colombia) turned in the lowest average on the team this season and is the highest-ranked individual in the conference at Golfstat.com. Serrano, ranked at No. 49, won C-USA Golfer of the week four times (out of her nine events played) and finished with a career-best 72.4 stroke average. She produced four top-five finishes, including three second-place results, and finished in the top 10 in six of the nine regular-season events. Individually, she posted a mark of 615-77 for the season, shooting par of better in 13 of the 25 rounds of golf this season.
"We have been so focused on playing good golf, that the ending of the season has not come up with the players in conversation," said Serrano as she approaches the end of her FIU career. "I have a step-by-step process for practicing and making improvements, and that has been the focus for me. In my mind, if we practice well, then we play better. If we play better, then we win. If we win, we play more. I like to keep it simple so there is no extra pressure."
Fellow senior
Coralia Arias (Quito, Ecuador) improved by nearly two strokes this season from last year, finishing the regular season at 76.29 in 24 rounds.
"We did not meet our own expectations at last year's tournament, and we just want to go back and end the season the right way and see what happens," said Arias. "The only goal is to win and I want to go out and give my best for this team."
Junior
Katerina Krasova (Ricany, Czech Republic) improved by nearly four strokes per round from last year, with a career-low 75.48 stroke average. She produced a pair of top-10 finishes this season.
The Panthers feature a pair of freshmen in the lineup
Carolina Rotzinger (Puebla, Mexico) and
Diana Velez (Dorado, Puerto Rico). Rotzinger is second on the unit with five rounds of par of better this season. Her stroke average is at 76.84, fourth-best on the team. Velez posted a season-best 71 in the second tournament of the year in Missouri and is fifth with a 77.96 average, playing all nine tournaments.
Live results links, through Golfstat, are posted on the front page of FIUSports.com for each round.
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including Lime Court at FIU Arena and at Riccardo Silva Stadium.
About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. 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 with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute. FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.
